Do you have any egotistical male friends or perhaps men in your life who love exposing it all? You know whom I’m talking about. They live off of attention and enjoy bathing in the limelight, as if their life depended on it. They’re the ones at parties who float around the room and schmooze with just about everyone, so by the end of the evening they are even more popular than the guy throwing the party.

Now of course I realize that you may know plenty of women who are exactly like this as well, we all do, but for the sake of this article, I’m only going to focus on the men. You may be wondering why I’m even writing about this; well I’ll get to that in a moment.

As much as we love to hate the attention seeking, overtly vain men in our lives, we also love them. Well most of them. Some are just plain annoying, but for those men who do have some redeeming qualities, it’s usually the ones that we wish we naturally had more of. We also secretly enjoy being with the guy who is the life of the party. He’s outgoing but not annoying, fun to be around, attractive, can make an entire room laugh without trying, and is actually a good friend.

So again, why am I focusing on this? Well here’s why. Have you ever been at a loss of what to give this guy for his birthday? He seems to have everything already, but in reality he doesn’t. You can give him the best present in the world. A side from your self of course, and that would be a T-shirt with his name on it. Can’t you see it now? Just imagine how he’ll feel when he can walk around on the streets of N.Y. or Austin or go to the parties in Portland or L.A., and everyone will know his name. He won’t even have to introduce himself, everyone will already know. They’ll most likely approach him about his T-shirt, which will in turn generate many conversations.

At first he may not appreciate or understand the powers behind the T-shirt, but you will. After an evening of him wearing this shirt, you will be placed on a new pedestal. Every time he wears the shirt, he’ll fondly think of you, only after thinking about himself and of course everyone else who is thinking about him. But hey, it’s the thought that counts, right?

So I know this article is a bit ridiculous, yet it does hold some truth as well. For all the men in your life, who might benefit from you purchasing an appropriate amount of Male Names T-Shirts, they’ll be forever grateful for the best birthday present in the world.

Do you know what’s the most popular women’s sport in the World? If you were thinking gymnastics or soccer or even cheerleading (yes, it’s a sport) then you’d be mistaken. The most popular women’s sport in the world is Netball. That’s right, netball. Now I had sort of heard about netball, not sure where, but I had no idea what it entailed other than a net and a ball. Now you may be an expert in netball, but for all of those people who aren’t as familiar, well keep on reading.

Netball was started in the United States in 1891, but has just recently been gaining in popularity in the States and is considered a “new sport”. Netball is similar to basketball and actually derived from it, in that a ball is passed down the court and each team tries to score points by putting the ball in the basket. It differs in that the players, depending on their positions, must stay in a specific area of the court designated for their position. The ball also looks more like a volleyball than a basketball.

This sport, which is played primarily by women, is popular in over 80 countries around the world and played by more than 20 million people. It’s most popular in the commonwealth countries and it is a primetime sport in the United Kingdom, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and the Caribbean. Netball is quickly gaining momentum on the world stage and many school-aged children learn the sport while in school as part of the educational curriculum and continue to play into adulthood.

I love all kinds of sports and I think that one day, I could even be sporting an I love netball bumper sticker too. As the sport continues to rapidly grow in the United States, Europe, and Africa, players from around the world are lobbying to get the sport included into the Olympics. With that many people playing in over 80 countries from around the world, I can see why it should be included as one of the Olympic events, and maybe one day soon we’ll all be watching Netball on the sport’s world stage.

Have you ever wondered or been curious as to how the design on your Custom T-shirt ended up there? The other day I was admiring one of my favorite shirts and truly appreciating the work that goes intoit’s creation. Then I started thinking about how most people probably don’t understand the process or know much about it. That’s when I got my idea to share with you the methods involved.

The Technique of Screen Printing
It’s the process of getting an image onto a material such as cotton, canvas, or paper. There are two methods.

1. This involves a woven mesh material, an ink blocking stencil and of course ink. The open areas of the stencil allow the ink to be pressed through the mesh as a sharp-edged image onto a coating, known as substrate. Then a squeegee is moved across the screen stencil, forcing the ink into the mesh openings for transfer.

2. The other method uses a stencil method, where the design is imposed on a fine mesh screen, the blank areas are coated with a resistant substance and the ink is forced into the mesh openings with a squeegee and onto the printing surface.

Now I know this may sound a bit technical, and it is, but before I try to explain it a bit more, I want to tell you a little about the history behind it.

How it started and Where it’s been
The very first images of screen printing appeared in China during the Song Dynasty (960–1279 AD). So in other words a long, long time ago. Screen printing then made its way to Japan and other Asian countries where it was adapted and new techniques evolved. Let’s move forward several hundred years. In the late 18th Century, the process became popular in Western Europe, but only when silk was easily obtained from the East, which they used in the mesh.

Now let’s fast forward to the early 1910’s. This is when a few people began experimenting with the process. They started using various chemicals and light, to create the images on the canvas. By the 1930’s, a group of artist coined the word Serigraphy, which differentiated the artistic method from the industrial form.

Speaking of artist. Andy Warhol was one of the most iconic artists in history to popularize screen printingaka serigraphy. His use of color & popular images became the rage. There were other artists who used this technique as well, such as Robert Rauschenberg, Blexbolex, Rob Ryan, Arthur Okamura as well as many more who also used screen printing as a medium to express their artistic vision.

Now that you know a little bit more about the history, let’s talk about the method to the madness.

The Steps& Process

Here’s what you’ll need.
1. A frame with a piece of mesh stretched across it.
2. A stencil.
3. Ink
4. Squeegee
5. Canvas or Paper

Once you have your frame and your stencil formed to block the negative space of the design, so that the ink only passes through the open spaces, you’re almost ready to begin.
Now I realize that most of you won’t actually try to create this process, but for those who are still curios, keep reading.

First your frame and screen must undergo the pre-press process, which involves emulsion and tape. This is when the design is created on the mesh. Next the screen is placed atop a substrate and ink on top of the screen and behind a reservoir of ink.

The screen is then lifted so that it doesn’t come into contact with the substrate, and then using a slight amount of downward force, pull the fill bar to the front of the screen. This causes the ink to fill the mesh openings and moves the ink reservoir to the front of the screen.

Now the squeegee is used to move the mesh down to the substrate by pushing the squeegee to the rear of the screen. The ink that is in the mesh opening is squeezed by capillary action to the substrate in a prescribed and controlled amount. As the squeegee moves toward the rear of the screen, a tension is created which pulls the mesh away from the substrate leaving the ink upon the substrate surface. If you want to learn even more about the screen printing process, take a look at this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wogKeYH2wEE

Squeegees and substrates, it sounds like a whole other world, unless you’re already familiar with the process. A friend of mine in college was an Artist who used Serigraphy to create beautiful designs on paper. I could watch her for hours. Up until that point, I had never had any exposure to screen printing.

It was a very interesting and creative process with a hypnotic effect. If everything wasn’t just right with the mesh or the positioning of the design or there were little holes that the tape had missed, she would have to start the entire process over from scratch. It was tedious, but the end results were beautiful. Eventually I had one of her pieces hanging on my wall.

When I was in art school, I had another friend who was a textile major. She also used screen printing, but she used it to create textiles on fabrics. It was pretty much the same process, but just a different medium. Both processes were equally fascinating to watch.

One last bit of information. There are three common types of screen printing presses. There is the ‘flat-bed’, ‘cylinder’, and the ‘rotary’, which is the most commonly used. There are also numerous methods of stenciling techniques and materials, which are used during the process, but far to many for me to mention in this article.

Hopefully, this has given you a basic idea of what the screen printing process involves. So the next time you see a really cool T-shirt online or an amazing work of serigraphy art in a museum, you’ll know a little bit more about what it took for it to be made. F2UBTM4PGBGJ

Named after their T-Shape Design, T-shirts are a common piece of clothing worn by millions of women, men, children, and even pets all around the world. They are a versatile piece of clothing, generally inexpensive, and easy to clean. From undergarments to high fashion pieces, the T-shirt is popular and here to stay.

A Piece of History

The T-shirt was first seen in the 19th Century when it evolved from a one-piece undergarment known as the “union suit” and was cut into two separate parts. The top part was long enough to tuck into the bottom part and was eventually worn my miners as an effective way to keep cooler in hot places. It could be worn with or without buttons.

The U.S. Navy made the slip-on T-shirt popular. Crewmen began wearing the T-shirts underneath their uniforms around the time of the Spanish American War. In environments where it was hot, such as on submarines or in tropical locals, the service men would remove their uniform jackets and only wear the T-shirts. This protected the uniform and made it more bearable for the crew.

By the time the Great Depression rolled around, the T-shirt was being already being worn by service industry workers and was now a popular clothing choice for ranchers and farmers. The T-shirt was inexpensive, lightweight, and provided some protection from the elements. At the end of World War 2, it was a common site to see veterans wearing their T-shirts tucked into their uniform trousers, and worn as a casual piece of clothing.

During the 1950’s the T-shirt gained a little piece of fame, when Marlon Brando wore it as a part of his wardrobe in the film A Streetcar Named Desire. The popularity of this movie and actor pushed the T-shirt into the main stream. Of course, in the 1960’s & 70’s Tie Dye T-shirts were all the rage as was the expression of free love and people weren’t afraid to flaunt it. They expressed themselves with T-shirts that said Make Love Not War & Peace with the emblematic sign.

By the 1980’s all members of the household were wearing T-shirts. Although it wasn’t really until the late 1990’s when Womens T-Shirts started to become more mainstream.
Women’s T-shirts were cut shorter than men’s, which allowed for a better fit. Then there was also the baby doll T-shirt, which was not only shorter but much gave a much tighter fit.

1000 Uses for Today’s Threads

T-shirts today are more popular than ever. They are still worn as undergarments, holding true to their original purpose, but they’ve evolved into so much more. They are practical for every day use, and trendy with the fashionably inclined. They range in price from a few dollars to thousands. Many people walk around as human billboards for large companies, without giving it a second thought. It’s a lucrative way to market a business, from the small mom & pop stores to the billion dollar industries. Just about every part of the world is selling T-shirts. Towns, Restaurants, Bars, Concerts, Theme Parks, Museums, and the list goes on and on.

Today personalized T-shirts are trending. You no longer have to be stuck with someone else’s design. You can create your own design and someone else will bring your T-shirt to life. T-shirts offer people a way to share their freedom of expression with the world.

Living in a large metropolitan city, you’re bound to encounter hearing two, three, four or even more languages in a single afternoon. Diversity is wonderful and I’m envious of those people who can master more than one language.

Have you ever been driving down the street and encountered a billboard in a language other than English and been very curious about what it’s saying? Or how about when you’re travelling in a foreign country and you see little ads on trains or on the sides of buses and you wonder, what the heck it’s saying.

I feel that way all the time. It really peaks my curiosity to know what the advertisement is selling, even though I know it’s not really a big deal, the not understanding part is what makes it all the more appealing.

In my neighborhood, there are billboards in Spanish, Korean, and English. I’ve been struggling to learn the Spanish language for a good portion of my life, so when I’m able to comprehend and actually understand the message, I get so excited. As far as the Korean advertisements go, well, I’m completely lost there.

I have friends who learned multiple languages when they were children. So adding another language to their repertoire seems to come naturally to them. For me, and probably many people, learning a new language as an adult can be challenging, but not impossible.

I absorb and am challenged the most when I’m actually forced to use the language in another country, no matter how silly I think I sound. When I was travelling in Spain for a couple of months, I learned to communicate more in a week, than I ever had in language school. Being surrounded by people who speak another language, you’re pretty much forced to communicate and that’s quite liberating. It’s such an incredible feeling when the language clicks and you understand. It feels like a whole new world has just opened up. Pretty cool.

Another great way to communicate is through T-shirts. Say what you want to say, in any language you want. Of course, we have T-shirts in Spanish, French, and Italian, but we also have a huge variety of T-shirts in many more languages for you to choose from. So why not spark someone’s curiosity with your Spanish T-shirt? It could end up generating a new conversation with a random stranger, which might change their world and yours, or at least make it a bit more interesting.