Our Printing Process

Design

All of our designs are inspired by the natural beauty of Northern California. We brainstorm and discuss each idea as a group before we get to sketching. All of our designs are hand drawn using pencil and pen. Then transferred into photoshop and Illustrator to add color layers and make fine tune touches.

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Screens

This process is a bit of a magical thing to witness. Each design is separated into color layers in order to create the screens. The design is printed onto special paper with black ink. Meanwhile, the screens are pre-prepped and are in the dark room with a new coat of emulsion. In the dark room the image film is burned onto a screen using a light table then the image is washed out at our power wash station. And voilà, the screen is made. Now ready to tape off edges and line up with the other screens if it will be a multi-color design.

Printing

Once screens are lined-up, each screen in covered with ink and assigned a squeegee for the day. A test shirt is run through making sure line-up is good to go. Then we are ready for production! Four shirts are put onto boards and the printing begins. Two people are always working together on production day. One of us printing and one taking off shirts and running them through the conveyor and organizing. Now the fresh printed garments can be organized and stored for later or tagged and prepped for stores.