Every screenprinter receives maddening client art requirements on a daily basis. We handle
anything that happens between the client telling you their t-shirt concept and you printing film.

We would love to fit into your regular workflow! Our prices are reasonable enough that you could easily utilize us on a daily basis and not feel any serious hit to your profit margin. In fact we can save you a lot of time, stress and struggle.

However, we also act as an emergency color separation and design service when:

1) You are overwhelmed with work,
2) Your client file is extremely problematic,
3) Your designer is sick or otherwise unavailable.

Ty Meier is the principle at Screenprintprepress.com. He's available at (510) 780-6693 and is happy to answer questions any time. Don't hesitate to call!

Some of the services we provide:

Grayscale .tif separations ready-to-print, with halftones:
It is better to print through your Raster Image Processor, but if you don't have a RIP we set up everything here. You get hi-resolution grayscale .tif (or .pdf, if there are no halftones) files ready to go. All you have to do is hit print to get film.

Logo re-creation:
The logo is at the top of the clients web page, very small, at 72 ppi.  You ask the client to find the original artwork but they can't. This problem is so common that we vectorize and recreate logos almost every day.

Four Color Process:
We have presets for Union, Wilflex and Rutland inks here are aren't afraid to use them. If you haven't printed four color process before and are unsure of how to do it, let us know and we'll make it happen.

Tracing Images to Vectors: 
You've got a scan of what the client wants, but it's not auto tracing in Photoshop or Illustrator very well and you really don't have time to deal with it. We vectorize images quickly and accurately.

Converting Layers to Channels
The typical self-styled "expert" graphic designer doesn't understand channels very well and why should he? They are rarely used in offset printing or web design. Layers are much more understandable to a non-screenprinting designer. We convert layers into Channels to create very clean art files.

White Underbase for dark shirts
The mainstream graphic design software out there is not designed for screenprinting, it's designed for offset printing. If it were designed for screenprinting, there would be a "Create white underbase" button. There isn't. It's got to be done manually. We do it, either in vector or raster art.

Font matching/tracing: 
The client doesn't have the font and you can't find it on the internet, so what do you do?

Creative process: 
The client is not sure what they want, exactly. Connect them with us, we'll work with them to nail down an image. This helps when you are extremely busy and don't have time for a client's artistic ruminations

Illustration: 
"I want a flaming terminator scull with dollar signs in the eyeballs", or "I want my logo to look like it's on a flag, flapping in the wind".  Check out our t-shirt gallery to see a portfolio.

 

Time and Money

24 hours is our standard.

Much more often, we have it done for you by the next business morning.

For a $20 rush fee we drop everything else and take care of your project RIGHT NOW.

We give quotes and stick to them. No Suprises!

All projects are payable via Paypal at the email address art@screenprintprepress.com

Note from the principle, Ty:

Bear in mind that I am not as interested in how much money I can make for one project as I am interested in doing regular business with you for years to come.

Here's one shops sample invoice for the month of July, 2009, with the project names changed:

Estimates:

$40 per hour, which is meaningless unless you know how fast we work. We work very fast. here's another way to think of it:

A basic, easy vector image with a couple simple spot colors is going to be $10.

A white underbase, or more then four colors or so will be an additional $10.

Small halftone links will be an additional $10.

Channel seps (lots of halftones) will be an additional $10.

Halftone white underbase will be an additional $10

Those cover about 70 percent of the seps that we do. The great majority of the jobs we send out are $10-$50. Logo re-creation, typesetting, creative process, vectorization, etc are more difficult to estimate. We absolutely must see the artwork before we give estimates. All estimates are free.

Regular clients of ours get used to it quickly: After several projects, once everyone is comfortable we end up not sending estimates for projects under $40. Instead, we just sep the projects and send one Paypal request per week (on Fridays) for all jobs done during the week. Once we get into a rhythm everything gets easy.

Don't hesitate to call to discuss! Ty is available at (510) 780-6693. Send artwork to art@screenprintprepress.com. If it's too big for email, use the upload function at the top of the page to move large files to our server for free.

About ScreenPrintPrePress.com

It is the ambition of Screenprintprepress.com to become your regular screenprinting color separation and graphic design resource.

If we can't do that, at least we can be your backup for when your graphic designer is sick or for when you are overloaded with work.

The prices are calculated to be easily passed on to the client- they are even cheap compared to other pre-press resources out there.

Long term relationships with screen-printing shops is our goal. We do your work today bearing in mind that we want your work tomorrow. You'll see that in every transaction.

About Ty Meier

Ty is a USArmy veteran who lives in Alameda, CA.  He lives an unobtrusive and quiet life with his loved Alison and little two year old daughter Autumn Rain.  Every day he commutes to his office near Crown Beach. It’s a cool dark dungeonous lair where he basks in the lights of many computer monitors and a desklamp mounted on his drawing board. The  walls are covered with artwork and screen-printed t-shirts, the desk is covered with the various macabre instruments of graphic design and illustration and vocal electronica plays continuously.  It’s a lot like the batcave.