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I have recently designed and sent a 1 colour t-shirt to a client for the final review. I used black colour for white shirts and white colour on black shirts.

I know now i should use Pantone Spot Colours but i don't have the Pantone Book yet (i'll order at the end of this week).

For that reason in a previous post in this forum i was suggested to choose a White Opaque Colour for Black Shirts and a Black Colour for White Shirts without using the Pantone reference and to leave the Printer to choose the colours for me. I believe the designer in the post refers to the Printer choosing the “Spot colours" for me right?

I'd like to use White Opaque C5% M4% Y4% K0% CMYK Colour for Black Shirts & Rich Black C40% M30% Y30% K100% CMYK Colour for White Shirts no Pantone colours and leave the Printer to choose the Spot colours for me. If you have any suggestion about the colour (%) to use you're welcome to post it.

Few questions:

1) Should i still make the colour Separation in the illustrator file when using CMYK colours or is the Separation needed only when using Spot Colours? 2) Is there a risk to leave to the Printer the choice of Spot Colour for me or is it a basic task that any printer should be able to achieve? 3) Or instead should i pick a Pantone for the Black Colour even i don't have the Pantone Book? If yes can anybody suggest a popular Black Pantone Spot Colour to use?

If you want to check my previous post look at this link: Pantone colours or CMYK for a 1 colour t-shirt print?.

Thanks in advance for support.enter image description here enter image description here

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  • Why not ask your printer these questions?
    – Zach Saucier
    Commented Apr 4, 2017 at 18:14
  • Because i'm handling the work to the client and he didn't ask me to deal with the printer. I'm not sure if he wants to manage the files himself, he just asked me only for the vector file and not the printing files pdf, eps etc.. Should i probably ask him about it? what's your thought?
    – Th-Inker
    Commented Apr 4, 2017 at 18:22
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    Ask your client to ask the printer what they need. Also, EPS/PDF files are vector file formats.
    – CmdZzz
    Commented Apr 4, 2017 at 18:28

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I know it all seems confusing at first, but you are making this more complicated than it really is. For your purposes, unless the screen printer will be printing using the four color process method (screen printing photographs etc) onto the garments, create all of the items of your artwork as spot colors.. Do not use Process colors to color your artwork. The very first thing you should do in a brand-new illustrator file would be to clear out all of the swatches from your swatches panel. If you were designing art for a customer who wants the art work to be orange, purple, and green (for example) create 3 new spot channel swatches in your swatches panel. Spot color orange, spot color purple, spot color green

enter image description here

If your customer tells you he needs a specific Pantone Orange color or purple or whatever, then just add those Pantone colors to your swatches panel and color your artwork with those swatches.

enter image description here

Black is black and white is white. Do not worry about Pantone values for black or white. Just make the black artwork colored with a black spot color..

enter image description here

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    Actually It is confusing the subject, but after you broke down the concept explaining the process in details and including images is actually less confusing and overwhelming then what it looks like. I will probably ask more (silly) questions in the future, but hey many of us are here to learn :) i sent the .Ai Adobe Illustrator vector file to the client as he requested me with 1 colour design, Black Spot colour. Thanks for help!
    – Th-Inker
    Commented Apr 5, 2017 at 11:32

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