All aboard the metallic train
Creating new robotics team T-shirts
By Lon Winters
Images courtesy of Lon Winters
The Angelbotics program is designed to give students hands-on experience with robotics. The organization has spent years turning classrooms and garages into proving grounds for young engineers. Angelbotics believes that if you give young people the tools to build something real, they’ll figure out the rest. Over time, that has turned into competitions, community, and a growing group of students who love robotics. The T-shirts we’d been printing for them all these years were part of that identity. But, the shirts were starting to feel more like a uniform than a badge of pride.
Sometimes, order history begins to look like reruns. Same logo. Same placement. Same garment. That was the story with Angelbotics. Good folks, great cause, and a yearly order of full-front, one-color white shirts. If they changed it up, we might wrestle a tri-blend or garment-dyed shirt that might need a blocker. Always the same. This year, a change came from the students. They were tired of it. They wanted something with personality. One of the students sketched a concept that was train-themed.
“What can we do to make this fun?” they asked. Fun is dangerous in production. Fun means variables and opportunities for things to go wrong. But it’s also where it gets interesting, and, if we’re honest, it’s where we get to apply what we know instead of just repeating it. During our roundtable idea session, we spelled or misspelled Angelbotics three different ways in our notes. Not a good start. Also, in there, though, was the real takeaway. They were tired of standard and needed something special. What about introducing metallic gold into the image? A little special. Not a lot of complication. They loved that idea, so we were a go.
The art came as a rough concept in pen and ink: a train, triangle, trees, and type. It looked okay, but once scanned into Adobe Illustrator and zoomed to size at 400%, it was pretty rough. The first step was cleaning it up to make it printable. We used auto trace and had to redraw parts using vector paths. The triangle logo, core to the Angelbotics identity, was lifted from last year’s art. We went into outline view and looked at distances between intersections. Anything too small at final print size with two stacked layers — blocker and metallic — we anticipated would close up. We applied some chokes using offset paths. We isolated intersections, manually adjusted anchor points and pulled enough to open the negative space. The trees around the train had thin branches with tight negative space and would likely fill in on press, so we opened that up as well using a combination of path and selective offsetting for some breathing room. The “(TR)ANGELBOTICS” type spacing was not right so that was adjusted. We expanded the type slightly, adjusted kerning manually, and opened up space enough to prevent fill.
Metallic ink sounds simple enough. It’s not just another ink color — it’s a suspension of metallic flake in a base that behaves a little differently than standard ink. It doesn’t completely block potential dye bleed, and it doesn’t always cover evenly directly on blended or brushed fabrics. The shirts were red tri-blend, and that sets off alarms for possible dye migration. Normally, when we’re printing color over a white printer or under-base, we choke the base slightly so the top color rolls over the edges, hiding any halo. Not this time. We built a full-size black bleed blocker base under every area that was metallic gold. No choke. The metallic ink can’t sink into the fabric at all, giving us full coverage and blockage. Essentially, the gold layer would also act as the blocker layer. And, of course, the train, outlines, and trees were on their own black layer. Total of three.
Once seps were locked in, we moved to screen making. All screens would be at a tension of 45 N/cm2. The blocker went on an N-102 tpi mesh. We needed the significant open area for the higher solids content of the blocker ink and a double stroke. Squeegees were 65/90/65 triple-ply dual durometer. Soft edge with a rigid backer. Before that, we ran a smoothing screen to iron those fuzzy tri-blends for a more consistent surface for the ink to sit on. After the blocker, we flashed enough to gel the surface. Then another smooth. The black detail came next on an N-228 mesh, single stroke. Finally, the metallic gold, also on an N-102. Double stroke again to give it what it needed to pop with consistent shimmer.
Curing was the final balancing act. Tri-blends don’t forgive overheating. Too hot and we invite dye migration, and maybe even some scorching or shrinking. Too cool and we risk under-cure. We ran the dryer just 10 degrees above minimum cure temp. The back print was one-color black, N-228 mesh, single stroke to match the front. The sponsor logos had fine type that we had opened up slightly in Illustrator.
The final prints weren’t the same Angelbotics shirts. The metallic gold turned ordinary into something a bit more exciting. More importantly, it was different. That’s something we don’t always quantify. We talk about mesh, squeegee, and the measurable things. But sometimes success is in how the customer reacts. Angelbotics saw it immediately. What had been a standard issue became something people actually wanted to wear. Angelbotics didn’t abandon their identity. The triangle is still there. Sometimes, all it takes is something familiar with a little gold. It felt like what Angelbotics had been doing from the start. They build environments where students get excited to create and build. In a small way, we got to do the same thing for them. All that glitters is gold!
Lon Winters is founder and president of Colorado-based Graphic Elephants, an apparel decorating studio and international consulting firm. He was inducted into the Academy of Screen and Digital Printing Technologies in 2013 and is widely recognized for his contribution to the graphic printing industry. Learn more at graphicelephants.com.
