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Another blog about designing with separations in mind.
Last week I wrote about how one should take precaution in designing shirts with an abundance of colors and gradients.
This week, I’ve contradicted that advice by designing a shirt with multiple colors and gradients, BUT
I will show you how I designed it in a fashion where it will most likely have the best chance for the separation artist to duplicate as closely the design with a little help.
There are a few unwritten rules in creating a design with separations in mind.
1. Using the shirt color in your design will help to create less hand (hand is the feeling of ink on the shirt), allow for unity in the composition, and will help to create a wider range of depth as it is like having another ink color with which to work.
2. If using multiple colors, using similar analogous colors will allow for the inks to blend better than those of opposing colors.
3. Blocking section of those in similar colors will help the separation artist to create screens for those colors.
Keeping those concepts in mind, if you look at this design, you will see that
1. The imagery is made of several sets of color.
a. One is the honey and text, which can be represented by orange, brown, yellow.
b. The second is the hair and lily, which can be represented by olive and dark olive.
c. The third is the face, which can be represented by white and orange. Although the face would best be represented with an additional flesh tone.
d. The fourth is the overall highlights and shadows which will be accentuated with black and white.
So ideally, this shirt would be separated and printed with 8 colors, possibly 9 if there is a need for base white.
2. Since the sections of colors are created by analogous colors, they are more likely to blend into a smooth gradient than if you were to use say a dark blue shadow with yellows and oranges in the honey. Since the blue would be blended into the yellow in halftones, there would be a possibility that the blue and yellow would subtlely mix creating a mixed green or aqua color. After dozens of shirts are printed, ink buildup on the bottom of the screen would also accentuate the problem.
3. While designing, I would assume most artists keep many layers. If you design the shirt cognitive of separations, you should keep those layers as selections.
I have saved with this design several selections as channels. These are color representations whereas the actual channels are solid black and white excluding the drop shadow. Viewing these images, you should be able to discern the how having the selections could help the separation artist go about the duty of separating the colors into screens. Although there are methods in which separations can be done without the use of these selections, if there are ever corrections needed in the screens, these will help greatly.
Separations are difficult but with a little help, you can for your client or for yourself help them to provide you with a better final product. I don’t claim to be an expert in separations as I only have a couple years of experience, and only a few more as a designer, but I feel it’s important to make sure that there is an understanding for designers of the whole production process.
Most apparel production houses have a restriction of 6-14 color due to cost and physical machine capabilities.
To reiterate last week’s advice, although full color designs with gradients can be printed, taking a design with over 16 million colors digitally down to the general maximum of 8-16 colors, the likelihood or representing the depth is unlikely.
Insults and counterpoints appreciated.
Thanks for reading.
7 Comments
Quest said 4 months ago
Thanks for the info Jimiyo, very helpful
collisiontheory said 4 months ago
Dude from what I hear, UO is looking for more designs that are for sublimation printing. I guess there might be a trend towards sublimation.
jimiyo said 4 months ago
Yeah, sublimation printing is getting up to par with the technology, but those are mostly in China. UO, I believe outsources most of their apparel.
Also the technology is still not as solid in the industry as plasticol or discharge printing as far as replicating color intensity. If you look at most of their dye sub prints, they are not as intense in color.
Also dye sub has a tendency to wash out faster.
But you are right, with dye sub catching up, the demand for plasticol might not be as much, but it will still remain for a while.
RockyRoark said 4 months ago
Ya i think there would be a need for base white, most definitely.lol
Reliique said 4 months ago
I would really like to have a tutorial about all those printing methods, can some guide me where to find that kind of info or Jimmy is planning to make one ?
Anyway again great article jimmy!
Eternyl said 4 months ago
Awesome Jimiyo....!
Hopefully more designers will take the time to learn to sep...
...nothing sucks more than having to sep someone elses work, especially when it’s set up horribly wrong.
another advanced method to add, is alot of really good sep artists, like to bury the black ink early in the print process, and print colors on top, which subdues the color ink...
hopefully DTG will evolve in the next few years and we won’t have to worry about this sep stuff anymore!
alrightok said 4 months ago
great articles jimiyo.
semi-related question (that maybe the printers here could chime in on as well): when setting up your seps for a design that will be printed waterbased should you delete areas of artwork that will lay under another color since with waterbased you can see right through and thus affect the color of both hits? maybe i just answered my own question but at the same time deleting the specific areas may also again create color discrepancy in just those areas since they are hitting the tee pure...
..yeah thanks!