Sizing & Measurement
Full Front Print
Full front print is a large chest graphic sized roughly 11-12 inches wide by 14-16 inches tall, centered on the torso of an adult shirt.
A full front print fills most of the chest panel, sized to whatever it prints on. Most manual and automatic screen presses run a 14 x 16 inch platen, but the printable image usually tops out around 11 to 12 inches wide by 14 inches tall once you account for the screen frame's border and the natural curve of fabric over the chest. DTG machines like a Brother GTX or Kornit cover more platen travel, sometimes 16 x 20 inches, but ink saturation and dry time still push usable art back into roughly that same 12 x 14 window.
On a standard adult medium tee, say a Gildan 5000 or a Bella+Canvas 3001, that leaves roughly 4 inches of clearance per side and enough vertical room to run from just below the collar to the natural waist. We once had a client submit full front art at 16 inches wide expecting it to fit as-is; the shop's screens were built around a 12 x 14 frame, and the file needed a full resize before it would burn.
Pros spec full front conservatively, closer to 12 wide by 14 tall, because that footprint survives the jump from a 3XL chest down to a youth large without a redesign, and it leaves margin for the frame's non-printable edge. Push past 12 inches wide and the design risks crowding the side seams on smaller cuts.
The mistake buyers make is assuming full front print scales with shirt size. It doesn't. A 12 x 14 inch design on an adult 3XL reads small against that much wider chest panel, while the same file on a youth medium crowds the shoulder seams. Anyone ordering a mixed-size run should ask whether the shop prints one master file across every size or grades the art per size break.