File types, best to worst
.ai .eps .pdf .svg
Vector art is built from math instead of pixels, so it scales to any size with no loss. Convert all text to outlines before sending — in Illustrator that's Type → Create Outlines. Otherwise we're missing your fonts and your type reflows into something you didn't design.
.png .psd .tif
Must be 300 DPI at final print size — that's the part people miss. A 300 DPI image that's 2 inches wide is not a 300 DPI image once we blow it up to 12 inches; it's a 50 DPI image, and it prints soft and jagged. For a 12 inch print we need roughly 3600 pixels across. Transparent background strongly preferred — a white box around your logo prints as a white box.
Screenshots of any kind. Images right-clicked and saved off a website. Anything downloaded from Instagram, Facebook, or a text thread — those are compressed to a fraction of their original quality. Photos of a printed design or of a screen. Logos embedded in a Word document or a PowerPoint slide.
Sizing
Tell us how wide you want the print, in inches. Standard adult front and back prints run about 11 to 14 inches wide. A left chest print is typically 3 to 4 inches. If you're not sure, say so and we'll recommend something — it's a two-minute conversation that prevents a reprint.
Color
Every color is a separate screen, and screens are what drive your price. A one-color print is dramatically cheaper than a four-color print at low quantities.
- If a color has to match exactly — a team color, a brand standard — give us the Pantone (PMS) number. We mix to Pantone and can match extremely closely. Without a Pantone number we're matching by eye to whatever your screen showed you, and screens lie.
- Gradients, fades and photographic images are printable, but they require halftones, which adds setup cost and complexity. Tell us early if your design has them.
- Very thin lines and small text — anything under about 1 point, or text under about 6 point — may not hold on fabric. We'll flag it if we see it.
Multi-color and layered art
If your design has multiple colors, send it with the colors on separate layers where you can. If you can't, that's fine — separating it is part of what the prep charge covers.
Art Prep Charge — $65/hour, 30-minute minimum
This covers cleaning up, resizing, redrawing, separating or converting files that aren't press-ready. Most jobs need zero prep — if you send vector art at the right size, there's no charge at all.
We quote prep before we do it. You'll get a number and an explanation, and you can approve it, send a better file instead, or walk away. It will never appear on your invoice without your say-so. Designing something from scratch is a separate service and is quoted separately.
Sending us a design from Canva
Canva is fine. We print Canva designs all the time.
But Canva is built for screens and social media, not for screen printing, so how you export matters a lot — the default download button gives us a file that's usually too small to use. This takes about ninety seconds. Follow it exactly.
First: check your canvas size
If you built your design on an "Instagram Post" or "Poster" template, it may be the wrong shape or too small for a shirt.
If you haven't started designing yet: on the Canva home screen click Custom size (top right), switch the units to inches, and enter the size you want printed. For a standard front print, 12 inches wide by 14 inches tall is a safe starting point. Design inside that.
If you already designed it at some other size: don't panic and don't rebuild it. Export it using the steps below and tell us how wide you want it printed. We'll tell you if it holds up.
Exporting the file
- Open your design in Canva.
- Click Share in the top right corner.
- Click Download.
- Open the File type dropdown and choose PDF Print.Not JPG. Not "PDF Standard." PDF Print.
- If you see a checkbox for Crop marks and bleed, leave it unchecked.
- If you see a checkbox for Flatten PDF, leave it unchecked.Flattening turns your text into pixels, which is the whole thing we're avoiding.
- Click Download, then attach that file to our quote form or reply to our email with it.
Why PDF Print: anything you typed in Canva, and any shape Canva drew, stays as clean vector art inside a PDF Print export. That's the good stuff. A JPG or PNG export turns all of it into pixels, and pixels don't enlarge.
If you have Canva Pro
Two better options are open to you:
- File type → SVG — this is the ideal file. Send this if you have it.
- File type → PNG, then tick Transparent background and drag the size slider to the maximum.
Either one beats PDF Print. If you don't have Pro, don't go buy it for this — PDF Print is genuinely fine.
Things that will get your file sent back
- Screenshotting your design. A screenshot is roughly 5% of the resolution we need. This is by far the most common problem we see.
- Sending a Canva share link instead of a file. We can't reliably pull print-quality art out of a view-only link, and an edit link keeps changing as you keep working.
- Texting us the design. Text messaging compresses images heavily. Email it or upload it.
- Photos dragged in from Google Images. Almost always too low-resolution, and often not licensed for you to print and sell.
One catch worth knowing about
Photos and graphics you uploaded into Canva stay as photos — a PDF Print export preserves them at whatever quality they came in at. If you dropped in a small, blurry logo, exporting correctly won't un-blur it. If your logo originally came from a designer, dig up that original file and send it alongside the Canva export.
Canva stock elements
Canva's own graphics and photos are licensed for you to use on merchandise in most cases — but the license doesn't cover reselling a stock graphic largely unchanged as the product itself. If your whole design is one Canva stock illustration and you're planning to sell the shirts, check Canva's content license terms. We'll flag it if something looks like it might be an issue, but that license is between you and Canva.
Still not sure?
Send whatever you have. We'd rather look at a bad file for free than have you guess.