Type, ink and the graphic tee
Design for the chest, not the screen
Esra Graphic Design explains why some shirt graphics read from across a room and others turn to blur at chest width. Typography, the screen and the press, and the long history of printed tees and posters, written for people who design them or simply notice them.
Read the notesHow a print is built
One color, one screen. Every graphic tee starts as a stack of separations.
- Screen 1Underbase
A white layer laid first on dark fabric so the colors above it stay bright.
- Screen 2Color fields
Each flat color gets its own mesh and its own pass of the squeegee.
- Screen 3Key line
The darkest layer goes last and hides small gaps where the others meet.
From the shop
A few printed pieces from the Esra Graphic Design shop, shown for reference.
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- T Shirt
Fat Ginger Cat Cute
- $19.99
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Posts here are signed Iris Kovac. Claims about type and printing are traced to printing-industry references and foundry documentation before anything goes up. An AI tool helps rough out the structure; an editor writes and checks the final text. The blog stays out of politics entirely.