Transparency Issues With The Artboard

[tacticalcrash]

Hi,

I'm pretty new to the whole printing logos that would be applied to t-shirts/apparel via heat pressing. I have created a logo entirely in Illustrator so it is all vectors. For some reason when it is printed onto the paper that will be heat pressed on the article of clothing. The logo will come out with the artboard as a white background similar to if you have downloaded a jpeg online and it has a non-transparent background.

I have worked around this by opening a saved pdf from Illustrator in Photoshop selecting my logo and creating a work path around the logo and it prints out fine when I do this way with the same file. Is there a direct way to do this with just Illustrator? When I try the Photoshop method I have to edit the selection otherwise there will be bits of white around objects and the logo doesn't look smooth because of the white pixels. Is there a setting in saving the pdf or a way to make sure that the artboard is transparent when printing?

[Ton Frederiks]

How does it look in Illustrator when you show the transparency? View > Show Transparency Grid

[tacticalcrash]

Hello, thanks for the reply I don't see anything on my entire artboard except the logo. I have this set up to print out multiple logos on a single sheet so that's why my artboard is larger than necessary..

[Anna Lander]

What happens if you add some BG under the logo in Illustrator? Do you see this BG or it's hidden?

could you make the artboard a bit larger (use the Artboard tool and transform it by usual bounding box), then select all (Ctrl/Cmd+A) and switch to the Preview mode (Ctrl/Cmd+Y), then create and share the screenshot?

Everything looks like you have the white BG, maybe locked or something else like this. Would be useful to see the screen with the Layers panel expanded

[tacticalcrash]

Hello, thanks for the reply I'm still new to some of the features in Illustrator what is the shorthand BG you are referring to? I probably know or heard about it at some point. I have a screenshot for you to look at. One has the transparency grid on and the other off.

[Anna Lander]

Well, your artwork looks clean. I'm afraid that it's an issue with printing technology. When you print something on a dark cloth, you need to make a special white background. It allows the colors to keep their brightness and saturation. So, if you don't give the shape of this background, the printing machine can use the artboard edge as this shape.

I would suggest trying the following:

1. Create a new layer under the artwork

2. Copy the whole artwork there.

3. Combine all elements into a united shape using Pathfinder > Unite

4. Expand this shape a bit using Object > Path > Offset path with a small amount. Delete the original shape, keep the offset one.

5. Delete all unnecessary elements from the artwork layer.

I'm not sure that this way works well but, as you say that the working path works well in Photoshop, it might work in AI as well.

[tacticalcrash]

Thank you for the suggestion and the insight. I never had to use these
types of paths before and I have only gone into a deep dive of Illustrator
in the past few months. Ill try it the next time I have access to the file.

[BradyLeavell]

Are you just looking to export a PNG without a background? If so, here's how: Go to file > export > export as. It will bring up a save dialogue. Check use artboard on the bottom of the dailogue box and click export. Now it will give you a few options. One of those options is background color. Change this to transparent, and you're good to go. Even if you're trying to export a PDF. Export it as a PNG with this method first and then throw the PNG away and try to export the PDF again. Illustrator will usually save the last setting you used for artboard background, so it might change things. Hope that helps!

[tacticalcrash]

Alright, when I have access to the file again ill also try this method of exporting PNG first and then saving a PDF.