To prepare all-over print artwork, design at the level of the full fabric panel rather than a placed graphic: build the file to real-world panel dimensions, keep effective resolution around 200–300 DPI at finished size, extend the design past every cut line, and keep critical details away from seams. All-over print (AOP) means the entire fabric panel is printed edge to edge before the product is cut and sewn, so the artwork has to work as a continuous surface, not a sticker placed on a blank garment.
One thing to clear up before the checklist: you do not need to build production-ready print files. Fabrixa accepts artwork as PDF, TIFF, JPG or PNG and prepares the correct print files for production. Your job is good source artwork — this guide is about exactly that.
Why all-over print artwork is different
With a placed print, your graphic sits inside a defined zone on a finished blank, and the rest of the garment is untouched. With AOP, the whole panel is printed first — front, back, sleeves and hood, with no print zones and no blank fallback — and the garment is cut and sewn from that printed fabric afterwards. Our explainer on what all-over print (AOP) is covers the production logic in full.
Two practical consequences follow. First, scale: AOP runs on fabric rolls roughly 150–200 cm wide, so your design exists at metre scale, not screen scale. Second, seams: the printed fabric passes through cutting and sewing, which means your artwork meets cut lines and seam lines that a placed print never touches.
Think in panels, not mockups
Most artwork problems start with mockup thinking — designing for how the graphic looks in a small on-screen preview rather than how it behaves on the physical panel. A motif that reads boldly at thumbnail size can feel sparse at garment scale; a fine texture that looks rich on screen can dissolve into noise across a hoodie back. Before polishing details, view the design at 100% zoom and ask: does this still work at the size it will be worn?
The all-over print artwork checklist
Work through these eight points before you submit. Each one prevents a specific, common failure.
- Build at real-world scale. Set your canvas to actual dimensions in centimetres, not arbitrary pixel sizes. Decide how large each motif should be on the finished product and design at that size from the start — scaling up later costs sharpness.
- Check effective resolution. Aim for roughly 200–300 DPI at finished size. Vector artwork scales freely; raster artwork needs enough pixels to hold that density at full panel dimensions.
- Extend past every cut line. Edge-to-edge means edge to edge. Never let the design stop exactly at the expected garment outline — carry the pattern beyond it so cutting never reveals a blank sliver.
- Keep focal elements clear of seams. Cutting and sewing carry natural tolerance, so a single hero motif sitting exactly on a side seam or shoulder line is a risk. Place critical elements confidently within panels and let repeating texture do the work near seams.
- Make repeats genuinely seamless. If your design tiles, test the tile: offset it horizontally and vertically and inspect the joins. A visible repeat line on screen becomes a visible repeat line across two metres of fabric.
- Design for the fibre. Reactive printing bonds dye into cotton and linen fibre rather than coating the surface, so colour becomes part of the fabric and the hand-feel stays soft. The same artwork also resolves differently per base — matte clarity on Percale, more saturation on Sateen, visible texture on Half Panama — so know your target fabric while you design.
- Export clean and flat. Supply a flattened PDF, TIFF, JPG or PNG. Convert live text to outlines or flatten it into the image so nothing reflows, and avoid leaving cropped edges, guides or watermark layers in the export.
- Sample before scaling. Screens are backlit; fabric is not. Order a physical sample of the real product before committing a full drop — with MOQ 1, sampling the actual garment is the normal first step, not an extra cost centre.
What you send — and what Fabrixa prepares
You supply the artwork; Fabrixa’s production team builds the print files from it — panel layouts, placement and production setup included. There is no template pack to wrestle with and no prepress software to learn. If your product line is personalised rather than fixed, Fabrixa Studio moves the design step to your storefront: a white-label customiser you embed as an iframe, where end customers create the design that flows straight into production.
Proof it on fabric first
The last checklist point deserves its own habit: never scale a design you have only seen on screen. A Sample Pack shows how the cotton bases render colour side by side, and its cost is credited against your first order. Sample, adjust the artwork if a base surprises you, then scale — from one piece to tens of thousands on the same artwork.
Frequently asked questions
What resolution does all-over print artwork need?
Around 200–300 DPI at the finished product size. Vector files sidestep the question entirely; raster files need enough pixels to hold that density across the full panel.
Which file formats can I send?
PDF, TIFF, JPG or PNG. Fabrixa prepares the production print files from your artwork, so you do not need to deliver press-ready files yourself.
Will the pattern line up perfectly at every seam?
Cut-and-sew always carries some tolerance, which is why the checklist keeps focal elements away from seam lines. Repeating patterns absorb small shifts gracefully; a sample shows you exactly how your design behaves on the finished product.
Do I have to design the repeat myself?
You supply the artwork in whatever form you have — a tile, a full-panel design or a large graphic — and Fabrixa builds the print files. If the design needs to tile, a genuinely seamless repeat from your side gives the cleanest result.
Ready to put the checklist to work? Read the reactive print guide for the full picture of how your artwork becomes fabric, or talk to our team about your first all-over print project — real humans, quick answers.
