Your idea is ready.
Your file might not be.
Most artwork we receive started as an AI image, a photo of an old logo, or a screenshot pulled off a website. All of it can print beautifully once a designer rebuilds it to spec. This page tells your designer exactly what to hand back.
AI generated artwork
Great concept, but usually too small, with painted backgrounds and lettering that falls apart up close.
A photo of an old logo
A shot of a sign, a hat, or a business card. The shape is there. The clean edges are not.
Low resolution or screenshot
A JPG from an email, a website grab, or a Word document. Fine on a screen, soft at 300 DPI.
How we print
DTF prints your file exactly as submitted.
Your project prints on direct to film (DTF) transfers. Hickory Brand House owns and operates EPIQ DTF, our in-house transfer plant, and DTF is our preferred decoration method: full color, photographic detail, unlimited colors at no extra cost, and a soft hand on almost any fabric. The trade off is honesty. The press will not add resolution, rebuild an edge, or guess at a thin line. What is in the file is what lands on the shirt.
File requirements
What a print-ready file looks like.
Hand this list to your designer as is. Every line matters, and the two that get missed most are the true transparent background and the 300 DPI at final size.
PNG preferred. TIFF accepted. No JPG.
300 DPI at final print size
Not 300 DPI at 2 inches, scaled up.
RGB, sRGB IEC61966-2.1 profile embedded
Do not convert to CMYK.
8 bit per channel
True transparency (real alpha channel)
A white rectangle behind the art prints as white ink.
Cropped to the artwork
No more than 0.25 in of empty space on any side.
15 in wide by 18 in tall for a single design
Outlined or rasterized
No live text, no linked fonts.
Flatten to a single raster layer
No embedded EPS or PDF objects.
The layered or vector source (AI, EPS, SVG, PSD) if you have it
Design rules
The six numbers that decide whether it prints clean.
These are measured at final print size, not on the artboard. A line that looks fine at 400% zoom on a monitor may be thinner than a human hair on the garment.
Line weight
1 pt is 0.35 mm. Thinner than that can drop out of the print entirely.
Text size
6 pt bold, 8 pt regular at final print size. Thin serifs and hairline outlines break up first.
Between colors
Minimum 0.5 pt between adjacent colors. Any tighter and the colors touch.
Whites are pure white
White ink is a real ink here. Anything left as "no fill" prints clear and shows the shirt.
Blacks are pure black
A rich or mixed black shifts green or muddy on fabric. Use RGB 0 0 0.
Glows and feathering
Go easy on soft glows, drop shadows and feathered edges. Semi transparent pixels read as a faint halo on the garment.
What usually needs fixing
Where your file is starting from.
None of this is a dead end. A designer typically closes these gaps in an hour or two. You keep the idea and get a file that prints.
AI is a great starting point and we encourage it. What comes back is a concept, not a print file yet. There are four gaps a designer usually closes quickly.
Send your concept plus this page to a designer and ask them to rebuild it to spec. Most will redraw it as vector so it scales to any size.
Most AI output lands near 1024 to 1536 px, which is only 3 to 5 inches at print resolution. Upscaling adds softness, not detail.
AI draws shapes that look like type. Zoom in and letters are often misspelled or structurally wrong, with no font file to correct.
What looks transparent is often a painted white or a painted checkerboard. Both print.
Generated images carry compression noise and soft halos that show up clearly on fabric.
Designers we recommend
Three people who already know our spec.
Independent designers we have worked with and recommend on results. Send them your concept and a link to this page. You hire and pay them directly.
Fiverr ◆ India
Eagle Eye Arts
Best for concert and event teesBootleg and vintage style apparel graphics, retro concert and party shirt concepts, streetwear. Fast and very responsive.
fiverr.com/eagleeyeartsFiverr ◆ Mexico
Dr. Demus
Best for original illustrationGenuinely talented illustrator. Hand drawn characters, cartoons, comic strips and panels. Use him when something needs to be drawn from scratch.
fiverr.com/dr_demus_33Upwork ◆ Mexico
Victor
Best for logos and premium graphicsHigh end graphics and a true expert in the print on demand workflow. Our pick for refining logos and vectorizing old marks. Priciest of the three, still reasonable.
View profile on UpworkHickory Brand House provides these links as a convenience to our current and prospective customers. We have no financial relationship with these designers and are not responsible for funds paid to them. We always recommend sticking to the Fiverr or Upwork platforms and not engaging in artwork designs of any kind with someone who's not known to you outside of the freelancing platform.
Copy this into your design brief
One paragraph. Everything they need.
Pick where the design will sit on the garment and the print width fills itself in. Copy the paragraph and paste it into your message to the designer.
Not sure? Leave it and ask us to confirm the exact size for your garment.
Paste to your designer
This artwork is for direct to film (DTF) transfer printing on apparel. Please deliver a flattened PNG at 300 DPI at the final print size of 11 to 12 inches wide, RGB with an embedded sRGB profile, on a true transparent background with no white box. All type outlined. Minimum 1 pt line weight, 6 pt bold text, and 0.5 pt gap between adjacent colors. Whites set to pure white RGB 255 255 255, blacks to pure black RGB 0 0 0. Keep edges crisp, avoid soft glows and feathering, and crop the canvas to the artwork. Include the layered or vector source file as well. Full spec: hbh.studio/artprep
Typical print widths
How big it actually prints.
Use these to fill in the print width in your brief. Ask us to confirm the exact size for your garment. We preflight every file before press.
| Full front | Adult tee | 11 to 12 in |
| Oversize front | Adult tee, boxy or heavyweight | 13 to 14 in |
| Full back | Adult tee | 12 to 13 in |
| Left chest | Tee, polo, quarter zip | 3.5 to 4 in |
| Sleeve | Short or long sleeve | 2.5 to 3.5 in |
| Full front | Youth tee | 7 to 11 in |
Maximum print area for a single design is 15 in wide by 18 in tall. Larger placements are split into multiple transfers.