Okay, who doesn't love a unique t-shirt
featuring a cool printed design?
Whether it's our favorite band or an inside joke with a friend or a business logo,
screen printed t-shirts make a statement about who we are,
right? It's super fun to wear these shirts,
but it's even more fun to make them.
If you've got great designs, why not put them on a t-shirt,
right? Today, I'm going to tell you how you can turn your printmaking hobby
or dream into a profitable business. With the right design and business model your shirts could
be flying off the shelves in no time.
Oh, and before I forget, you don't have to limit your printmaking business to t-shirts. Pants,
hoodies, hats, tapestries, stationery,
posters - if you can print on it,
you can sell it and make it.
Hi, I'm Mei Pak. I help artists, makers, and designers make a living selling their handmade products
online. Screen printing is super popular and it's sometimes called silk-screening.
It's the method of laying thick ink on top of the t-shirt rather
than soaking it to print a design. Screen
printing is actually an eight billion dollar industry,
so there's absolutely customer demand.
That said, the pandemic has actually hurt the screen printing industry.
Its overall growth has gone down 2.2% since 2015,
with the largest drop occurring during the pandemic, according to IBIS World. Still,
I believe this decline doesn't reflect a lack of interest in screen printed products.
I think it's simply due to a decrease in consumer spending on clothing in general
thanks to the pandemic since no one was going out,
right? So it's possible that now that the world is opening up again,
the industry will spike back up too. Another method of printing
is digital printing.
Digital printing is far less labor-intensive than screen printing
and produces high quality prints at a faster pace.
So it's safe to say it's another popular choice among printers,
especially those that need to meet a higher demand of customers.
The digital printing industry is worth 11 billion dollars,
three billion dollars more than screen printing. The efficiency and convenience of digital printing
are likely why this industry is performing better than screen printing
overall. Regardless of which printing method you use,
you’ll be able to find a customer base for your products
so you won't have to worry in that department.
The decline in the industries is due to the pandemic more than anything else.
So as the world starts to heal, they'll be more willing to
spend some extra cash on a cool custom gift
for themselves or for other people.
So if you want to go into this business, don't let that decline
stop you from trying. Now that you know a little bit more about the industry,
let's get into the steps you need to take to build a successful
printmaking business aka the exciting part.
So, the first step is to figure out what exactly
you will be printing. Not just whether you want to print shirts or posters,
but the actual theme of your shop.
In fact, I would recommend not containing yourself to just one type of product,
but keeping it open so that you can sell multiple types of products.
That way you're giving people a variety of reasons to shop from you,
whether that's a piece of art to decorate their home with or a shirt to buy as a gift.
You might also find that some of your customers
love your designs, but don’t necessarily want to wear them on a t-shirt.
If you don't have other options available,
like stationery or posters or frameable prints,
you might lose out on a potential customer. So,
while it's important to think about
what type of product you'll be printing on, choosing a theme and being consistent with that
for your designs is the top priority.
Maybe you can print designs that reflect your city.
This can be a fun niche for your local market,
but it might make it hard to expand to a wider market.
What about nostalgic prints inspired by your favorite old TV shows?
I know TV references can be super popular
and it's a unique gift and everyone loves a little nostalgia,
right? Or could you print entirely custom designs for your customers
in your own style of art. I've seen shops,
for example, that take family photographs and turn them into pop art style
prints. If you're stuck, maybe try working backwards.
Pick an audience or niche first and then brainstorm
what designs you can make for that group of people. Try not to choose a totally oversaturated niche
that will be hard for you to stand out in
and try not to choose a niche that nobody's ever heard of either,
because then customers just won't find you.
At the end of the day, you want to try to find that perfect sweet spot. Custom stationery,
for example, is a smaller market on Etsy that still has a large existing customer base.
Once you know what niche you want to fall into, you can decide what products you want to print.
You might choose based on cost of supplies,
but you can also decide based
on what you think your design will work best with. Like not everything that looks good on stationery
works on a baseball cap, for example. Does your work scream “wear me” to customers
or “hang me on a wall”?
Sometimes it will work perfectly well for both.
A Los Angeles poster is just as interesting as a Los Angeles t-shirt,
right? Like I said before the more products you have the better
for your store as long as you're consistent with the theme.
Now we can jump into Step 2. Step 2 is choosing
what type of printing you’ll do, namely whether you want to try screen printing or digital printing.
We already covered some of the basics of both,
but let's dive a little deeper
so you can make a well-informed decision about which method works better
for you and your shop. Screen printing is far more labor-intensive than digital printing
and there's a lot more room for error.
That said, when done right, this method is unique, interesting,
and makes great prints. Many artists pride themselves on their screen printing skills
because it really is impressive
once you learn how to master it. Still,
that doesn't mean it is for everyone. Now disclaimer,
the following explanation is a slightly simplified version for the sake of this video.
So if I skip any steps, that is why. I'm focusing on the big overarching steps here.
So the first step to screen printing after choosing your design is preparing the screen.
These screens look a lot like window screens,
but they're surrounded by a wooden frame and better quality.
You cover the screen in a layer of emulsion to prevent ink from leaking through.
Then you'll start mixing your colored ink until you make the exact colors you're looking for.
After that, you'll place the screen and the shirt into a specialized printing press. There you
will pour the color mixture using the screen to soak up any excess ink.
You repeat this process for every new color.
So most screen printers limit the number of colors in their design to just one or two.
After the colors are placed, you put the shirt into a specialized dryer.
Then as long as everything looks okay, it's ready to go.
Obviously screen printing is a lengthy process
and it is limiting when it comes to the amount of colors you use and the complexity of the design.
I mean you can use unlimited colors,
but it will just make the work a lot harder and the process longer. Still,
if you use high quality ink, you can create some incredibly cool
shirts that last a long time. Not only that,
but the colors tend to be more vivid and bright than digitally printed designs. Digital printing
is a much easier and faster process.
It's a much newer method at only about 15 years old but its popularity has boomed
since its invention. It is on the expensive side, though.
The machine costs start at $15,000 and it just goes up from there.
Some cost as much as eight hundred thousand dollars.
Still, printmakers can make up this cost relatively quickly,
because they can churn out so much more product
so quickly. Digital printers use direct to garment printers,
which are basically giant inkjet printers
meant to print on t-shirts and other
clothing items. The printers
make it easier to blend a variety of colors,
even though they don't turn out as vibrant as screen printing.
So digital printing is an expensive
but efficient process and more
and more shops are using it in order to meet high demand. At the end of the day,
saving on time is a big deal when you're operating a business.
So if you can afford it and you have dreams to build a big business,
I would recommend digital printing as a good place to start or maybe to aspire to get to eventually.
Once you know which printmaking method is the best for you,
you can start with step 3 - gathering supplies.
The supplies you choose will vary depending on which method of printing
you choose and what products you want to print on.
But I will do a basic breakdown with both types of printing methods
that should give you a pretty good idea of the startup cost. For screen printing,
the first item you need is a screen printing press. For those new to the business,
you can start with a manual machine. It's a little more labor intensive
but it's a great way to master the craft and you can upgrade your machine as your business
grows. Manual machines cost around a few hundred dollars to five thousand dollars
depending on how many colors you want to be able to do at
once and can usually make about 60 prints an hour.
A starting cost for automatic machines is about $30,000.
So I highly recommend starting with a manual machine until you get your business off the ground.
Next, you need to buy screen printing ink.
Speedball ink is the most popular brand
for artists and a set of multiple colors is about $30 on Amazon.
You will then need squeegees which are what you use to pull the ink across the screen.
Squeegees are around $10 on Amazon. After that,
you'll need emulsion, the liquid you use to keep the ink from spilling out of the screen.
Emulsion is around $20 to $30
depending on the size and brand. Then you'll need design software.
You can make elaborate t-shirt designs on Adobe Illustrator for about $20 a month,
but there are other softwares like Coreldraw that are free to use as of the filming of this video.
Next, you need an exposure unit to expose your stencils
to UV light. This gets your designs onto the screens. Exposure units can range dramatically in price.
But depending on the quality you choose, you can expect to spend somewhere between $500 and $2,000.
Then of course, you will need the actual framed screens.
These cost around $20. After that, you'll need a washout booth to clean your screens.
These can cost between $1,000 to $2,000 to buy or you can build your own.
Finally, most screen printing shops
use flash dryers to cure the inks and make them wash resistant.
Flash dryers cost between $400 and $2000.
Now, for digital printing, you will need the same design software
as screen printing, plus a direct to garment printer which starts
at around $15,000 and can get up to $800,000.
I know, it's pretty crazy. You will also need a heat press,
which costs around $300 for a basic level press,
but can get up to $3,000. The supplies needed for digital printing
are far fewer, but they are extremely expensive.
You can add the cost of supplies for digital printing versus screen printing and decide
what's best for you. One perk about digital printing is that you can make much more product.
So if your business is successful, you should be able to make up for those
expensive costs faster than you might with screen printing. Step 4 of starting
your own printmaking business is making the product.
A good rule of thumb is to start with about 10 to 15 designs. From there,
you can have a good idea of which products are selling the most
and then you can make more quantity or more inventory of the product
that is more in demand. Make sure to take plenty of time to practice
and perfect your craft before you make those sellable pieces,
especially if you plan on screen printing,
which is a lengthy process that will take time and patience to master.
After you make your product, you can move on to step 5 - starting
the actual shop. As usual,
I recommend building a shop on Shopify.
That way you will remain in control of your own shop
and don't have to share a portion of your sales with a parent site like Etsy or Amazon,
because on Etsy or Amazon, you really are at the mercy of those sites
and you're confined by the rules and guidelines as well as the competition.
You can always have Amazon or Etsy as a side business,
but try to have the majority of your traffic go to your Shopify site.
You'll be glad to have so much freedom and control over your own business.
Plus Shopify is super friendly, which is always a
plus because that means making sales is easier for you.
Once your Shopify site is all set up, you can start selling your prints.
Are you interested in starting a printmaking business?
Would you prefer screen printing or digital printing or maybe you've already got a print business?
I would love to hear more about it. So let me know in the comments below.