thread's not dead - doITlab

LT Magnotto
My name is LT Magnotto, I am 26 years old and have been making color separations
for apparel screen printing full time for the past 6 years. Like most designers,
I had no idea how involved the screen printing process was. I was 20 years
old, working part time at the YMCA doing before and after school childcare in
order to pay for college. I was enrolled in the “Multimedia” program at the time
which was teaching me everything from photo restoration to flash animation.
Derek Hess and Jakprints
I picked up some hours working with local artist Derek Hess to design what
was to be a new clothing line that features his art. We now all know it today as
Strhess Clothing. I realized a few sessions in that I really didn’t know anything
about screen printing, and that if I were designing for it, that I should probably
educate myself on the process. I figured that by knowing and understanding it
better, that it would help me design better. Luckily, Derek’s studio was directly
above a small (at the time) screen printing company called Jakprints.
The owner Jacob at the time was doing all of the color separations himself. He
had a real backwards approach to Photoshop to say the least. I was really intrigued
by the way that he used the program and his wild methods of extracting
colors. Jacob had no formal training in the program and had figured out how to
use it in his own way. Jakprints was growing fast and Jacob was no longer able
to juggle separating for two shifts of production and all of the travel involved in
owning a growing business and he offered me the job.
Sink or Swim!
It was a terrifying time in my life. I feel like it was one of those moments where
I was thrown into a pool for the first time and just told to start swimming.
That being said, I was able to really learn the process through trial and error
and develop my own methods. I wasn’t really the most popular dude in the
shop at that point.
You have to remember is that separations are step one in a long process. When
I screw up, there are a whole line of people who now have to redo everything!
New films need to be made, screens need to be coated, then exposed, blown
out, dried, taped up, lined up on the press, ink loaded, and then printed.
THREAD’S NOT DEAD • Jeff Finley
Repeat this process 10 times a day because there is a noob behind the wheel
and I bet you will get the idea of the vibe in the shop. Sink or swim!
When you get into wild color separations and simulated process printing, you
are essentially painting on the t-shirt. There is no true way to view in Photoshop
how the colors are going to simulate with each other or how Pantone 102 C isn’t
going to simulate the way you wanted it to with Pantone 185 C. Six years and
thousands of dollars in destroyed t-shirts later, I’m doing full color simulated
process separations for t-shirts that hang in stores at the mall.
LT Magnotto has earned a reputation for being one of the best color separators in the biz
Case Studies & Interviews 94