what is the best hardware?

[JonathanWilliam]

I am going to be designing logos and artwork for shirts and hats and whatnot. I wanted to know what I would need to do that. I'm using Photoshop CS. I also have a Lexmark scanner. But i want to know about a good camera, tablet, etc. Thanks so much.
J

[RichardJT]

First you must decide how big you want to go and the methods of application. Are we talking iron-on , screen printed, embroidered or woven? Are we talking do-it-yourself or using a specialist house? Size of print run can also be a factor.

I do specialist one-off orders and most of it I do myself. In the past, this has included logos, tee-shirts and even souvenir champagne glasses with a photo of the bride and groom (water-slide transfer baked on for 20 minutes).

I find that a Nikon 2000 digital camera is perfectly adequate for such things - you don't need high resolutions because the printing processes involved are very low res.

If you are thinking about doing it yourself, however, you must have a colour laser printer (ouch! - especially for A3). This is not for the res but for the process - bubble jet ink washes out. You can get special media for laser printers that make iron-ons, tranfers, back print etc permanent.

You would also need special machines to apply the transfers, one flat and the other for hats, and a computer guided cutter.

You can also get computer guided embroidery machines. The question to ask yourself is "How big is my budget?"

Can't help with tablets, mine is a brand less knock-off bought in Hong Kong for $30.

Hope that's been of some help.

[John Rayner]

If you are pretty cooridinated with a mouse than a tablet is just extra fluff. On the other hand, if you can not draw worth snot with a mouse and need a bush or pen, than a tablet is a neccessity.

Logos and what not are crisper and cleaner done with a vector drawing application like Corel Draw, Adobe illustrator or my favorite Xara X1. Xara is the easiest to use but the others run are Macs and are more familiar with the print shop guys.

[Vector_MG]

WACOM tablet for sure
www.wacom.com

[gidgit]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> Xara is the easiest to use but the others run are Macs and are more familiar with the print shop guys. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

ah, nowadays most print shops will accept files burnt from pc as well as mac, so I wouldn't worry too much about which os...