Pre-Search
I had a few ideas when we were introduced to the Heat Press Project, but I eventually settled on a Pole Vault theme. Because of the limitations of heat pressing designs, I opted for a silhouette of a pole vaulter and a solid-color-gradient-sunset design (seen above), since it's a pretty common background on T-shirts. I figured this would be a good balance of complexity and ease of creation
I first searched the web for the two graphics I needed: The silhouette of the vaulter, and the solid color sunset for behind it. I imported those to Illustrator and used the Image Trace feature to make them into vector images, and added some other elements like the words "Pole Vault" and some frame-looking details. This is an earlier version of the design:
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Once I had my Illustrator file prepped, I took it down to the vinyl cutter and cut the different pieces. In hindsight, it took a long time to do all 6 colors in the design, and I would probably simplify it a bit if I did it again.
The important things to remember was loading the heat press vinyl upside down and mirroring the file in the program before cutting, but otherwise it was smooth sailing. |
Finally, it was time to heat press. This was the easiest part of the whole process because it's just pretty much a final assembly, and the heat press does almost all the work.
For me, the most difficult part was stressing over whether or not the deign was going to lift off the shirt when I removed the plastic that the vinyl was stuck to after heat pressing it. Eventually, I got all 6 colors on the shirt and they felt pretty stuck, and here's the final product! |
Summary
In this unit, i learned about how easy it is to create useable clothing patterns with a heat press. It was interesting because clothing has never been something I've been overly interested in, and it was actually pretty fun to make something like that