Apparel Graphic Design

Original Design from a Brief

Concepts developed from your brief, your brand or a starting sketch. Some clients arrive with a mood board and a rough idea of a slogan. Others arrive with nothing but a name and a deadline. Either works. We will come back with concepts, take your notes and refine until the artwork is right, and we would rather have that conversation before the screens are burned.

Artwork Preparation and Print-Ready Files

Existing designs rebuilt to a print-ready standard. This covers the file you were sent by a freelancer three years ago, the logo that only exists as a PNG on your website, and the design that prints fine at A4 but falls apart at chest size. Preparation is unglamorous and it is where most garment print problems are quietly solved.

Vectorising and Redrawing

Low-resolution or raster artwork redrawn as clean vector so it scales to any size and separates properly. If your logo is currently a small JPEG, it will need this before it can go onto a garment at any reasonable size. Redrawing is not tracing: we rebuild the shapes so curves stay smooth and type stays type.

Colour Work and Palettes That Suit Fabric

Palettes chosen for how ink actually behaves on cloth. Colour shifts when it goes onto fabric, and it shifts differently on a heavy black cotton than on a light poly blend. We select and adjust colours with the garment in mind, working alongside our colour separation team so the palette on the design is the palette that comes off the press.

Adapting Artwork to the Print Method

The same design goes onto a garment differently depending on how it is printed. Screen printing wants a controlled number of colours and holds bold, solid work beautifully. Digital printing handles unlimited colour and photographic detail. Embroidery needs stitch-friendly shapes and will not hold hairline detail at all. Transfer and hybrid printing sit somewhere between. We adjust the artwork to fit the method, or recommend a different method to fit the artwork.

Clothing Graphic Design for Brands and Own Labels

If you are building a clothing brand, the design work is not one graphic. It is a set of pieces that have to hang together: a main graphic, a back print, a small chest mark, something for the sleeve, a version that works on a hoodie as well as a tee, and artwork for the swing tag and the labelling. We can develop the range as a range, so it looks like one collection instead of five unrelated files.

That work runs straight into our retail supply and own-brand production, garment finishing and printed media services, so the graphic, the garment, the tag and the label all come from one place and match each other.

Promotional and Office Graphics in Leicester

Not everything a brand needs goes on a garment. Alongside apparel work, our Leicester studio designs and prints promotional posters, retail sale posters, flyers and promotional materials, custom packaging, labels, swing tags, stickers and office stationery through our printed media service. Keeping the design in one studio is what stops the poster in the window drifting away from the tee on the rail.

Designing for Garments Is Not Designing for Screen

A few things catch people out every time. Thin outlines and hairline type disappear or fill in once ink hits fabric. Gradients that fade to nothing need a halftone to hold them, and how well they hold depends on the mesh. Very small text becomes unreadable long before it becomes invisible. Colours that look right on a backlit monitor go flat on cotton, and white artwork on a dark garment needs an underbase built beneath it.

None of this means your design has to be simplified into something dull. It means the decisions get made deliberately at the design stage, by someone who knows what happens next, instead of being discovered on a sample.

How the Design Process Runs

Send us what you have and tell us what the garment is, how many you want and roughly when you need them. We will come back with a design quote and a view on which print method suits the idea. From there we produce concepts or prepare your existing artwork, you review, and we amend until it is signed off.

Once artwork is approved, the file goes to colour separation if it is a screen job, or straight to production if it is not. Standard production turnaround is 5 to 10 working days from approval of artwork and payment, and design time sits before that, so factor it in when you are working back from a launch or an event date.

What to Send Us

Whatever you have. AI, PSD, PDF, PNG or EPS are all fine, and layered or vector files give us the most to work with. A photograph of a sketch on paper is a perfectly good starting point for original design work. If all you have is a small logo pulled off your own website, send that and we will tell you honestly whether it needs redrawing before it goes any further.

Design That Goes Straight into Production

Most design studios hand you a file and wish you luck. The value of designing with a printer is that the artwork does not have to survive a handover. It is built for a specific method, on a specific garment, on presses we run ourselves, and if something needs adjusting during setup, the designer is down the corridor.

We also do design work as a standalone job. If you want the artwork and intend to print it elsewhere, that is fine, and we will still build it properly for the method you name.

Who We Design For

Clothing brands and own-label ranges. Businesses printing workwear, uniform and corporate apparel. Bands and promoters through our band and tour merch printing. Charities, schools, clubs and campaign groups. Promotional suppliers who need artwork prepared to a printable standard at volume. And individuals who want one thing done properly, which we are equally happy to take on.