For plot printing process with Spreadshirt, you need to provide a vector graphic design, which means it’s made with curves instead of pixels and can be resized without any quality loss. Here you will find a mini tutorial which explains the basics:

1) Choose a drawing you would like to see on a t-shirt.

2) Photocopy your drawing in black and white, then trace the principal lines with a black medium/thick marker pen as the lines need to be at least 1.5 mm in diameter to be able to be cut during the plot printing process. The more precise your drawing is the easier it will be to convert into a vector graphic. Once you’re happy with it scan your design or photograph it with a digital camera and save it on your computer as a jpeg file.

3) Now your design needs to be converted to a vector graphic. I used to use Illustrator for this until I discovered a piece of open source software (free!!!) called Inkscape which does the job really well. See Inkscape for Illustrator users for more details about the differences between the 2 softwares.

Just open or paste your jpg file and use ‘Trace bitmap’ function. Then save your design with .eps extension. You’re done!

4) Here is the result on a t-shirt with a silver finish. You can create your own custom tshirt using this design.