In early February we took a trip across London to visit Tim who prints each of our

T-shirts by hand. Tim is an expert in printing and we want to provide you with a

glimpse at his process.

​

Tim prints using a process called screen printing. In his words:

 

‘Screen printing is the process of transferring ink on a surface using stencilled design. These screens have a fine mesh exposed where the design is cut out, this allows us to push through ink to create the imprint of your design beneath’.

​

So why screen printing? Well firstly, it's a 'one-by-one' process controlled by a skilled artist rather than a machine which we believe breathes some soul into our garments. Tim, however, gave us a few technical reasons too... 

 

‘With the printing type you guys have chosen [water based] the ink is absorbed by the fabric, this does two things, firstly it feels like nothing is there so the material keeps its properties and doesn’t have any stiff surface feel from the print. Secondly, the design won’t fade for years as it's part of the material so will last as long as it does’.

​

Sounds good right? We were sold anyway.

​

The whole process of applying the design to the base T-shirt takes a few steps.

​

To start, the screen is prepped with our design. Each colour requires its own screen so YÉLO had four screens in total, and PIDGE, just two. 

​

Then the screen is laid onto the T-shirt and ink is pressed through the mesh screen transferring our design. This is then dried and the next colour is applied layer by layer until we have our finished product. 

​

Finally, the T-shirts are passed through a dryer again before we package them up and get them off to you!

 

To see Tim in action take a peek at the video above. 

​

Those that missed out on a T-shirt joined our wait list here and re-home a garment.

​

We only re-sell garments returned to us in perfect condition.