Haile Selassie was born in 1891 and is said to be part of an Ethiopian dynasty. His ancestors were the rulers of Ethiopian history, including one Ras Tafari (namesake of the Rastafarian religion) and great grandfather and Ethiopian King Saheka Selassie. He was crowned in 1928.

This accession to the throne by no means gave him an easy hand to carry out his reforms, however. He had to contend with power-jealous rulers of provinces, a powerful Ethiopian clergy opposed to science, innovations and modern methods, and incessant foreign intrigue for economic control and even seizure of his country. Still, he was able to institute a parliament and modern court system, and build roads, schools and hospitals—not a small undertaking considering Ethiopia is such a poor, highly-underdeveloped country. The country’s foreign and domestic problems continued to mount until Selassie was eventually overthrown, but he figures prominently in the Rastafarian religion that began in Jamaica.

African and Ethiopian culture was prevalent among many of the oppressed civilizations throughout the western hemisphere, especially among those of Jamaica. It is unclear as to why the Rastafarians chose to name their movement after Selassie’s pre-enthroned ancestor but it is clear that Selassie appears prevalently in their songs and prayers. The faith and beliefs of the Rastafarians persisted and he remains revered figure. Though the Ethiopian money emblazoned his likeness up until well after he died in 1975, it has been said about him that no picture of him has ever been able to capture the essence of his spirit.

You may be wondering—just what exactly does this Rasta/Ethiopian history have to do with printing T-shirts? It is where our story begins….

The concept for this design would pull in the images from historical Ethiopian currency that features a prominent fi gure in Rastafarian culture, King Haile Selassie. (All images courtesy the author)

Ten years in the making

While exhibiting at The NBM Show in Baltimore, a lovely Ethiopian couple happened into the booth. We were having an appropriate, run-of-the-mill trade show discussion about our services and the how the show was going when they noticed two prints on our wall that really lit them both up.

The prints were of the front and back of the Ethiopian dollar (or Birr as it is referred to by the Ethiopian people). Our new friend excitedly pulled a rugged bill from his wallet to show us the duplicate of what was printed on the shirts. Seeing the currency, we naturally started to barter for it with some of our materials, resulting in no more than a chuckle for our efforts—apparently the bill was not for trade and has been out of circulation for some time. We took turns posing for photos next to the prints on the wall, and the nice folks let us take photos of the money they had.

Flashback 10 years to when that project was conceptualized, when a young man came to us to do a series of prints using the Ethiopian money as reference. At that time, it made little or no sense as to why he was passionate about the subject matter. But now we get it. (We can be bit slow at times.) This fellow was a Rastafarian and studied the religion and its history of then-King Ras Tafari and his ancestry King Haile Selassie pictured predominantly on the Ethiopian Birr.

Pre-press pressure

So now that you have the history, let’s talk about how we nailed the imagery so closely. First thing, both sides of the real Ethiopian bill were scanned into Photoshop at 300 dpi. The bill was in pretty rough shape, but that would add to the overall worn look of the money. Once imported into Photoshop, increasing contrast and sharpening it would really optimize the image to bring out the detail—especially important considering the size would need to be increased by 300 percent or so.

The author used scans of an Ethiopian Birr. The bill’s rough shape would add to the overall worn look of the design.

Once imported, the author increased the contrast to optimize the image and bring out the detail.

An index method of separation was the way to go here—it was important to be able to read the fine type in the background area and traditional halftones, regardless of size, may be too fuzzy. The knock with index printing, though, is the number of colors it sometimes requires; in this case, printing eight colors on white. Positives were printed via inkjet to clear film and made their way to screen making.

An index method of separation was implemented in order to capture the details, however, this method would also require eight screens in this instance.

All the screens would be identical considering all the garments would be white. The FM stochastic pixels were all the same size and seemed to work best on standard LE 230 tpi (threads per inch) at 30 N/cm or the high tension N272 at 45. Stencils would consist of quality dual cure emulsion coated two-over-three, ending on the squeegee-side for excellent resolution. The stencil thickness was at 12 percent EOM (emulsion over mesh) on the substrate side. Using a high pressure wash after exposure would ensure all those little pixels washed out.

Like printing money…

On press, the image would be built from light to dark and from least coverage to most to minimize any image loss or gain from the wet-on-wet application. All squeegees were dual durometer, triple-ply 65/95/65 with a soft edge and stiff backer for a good ink deposit without roll over of the rubber. With minimal squeegee and flood pressures, speeds were wide open—a luxury we all get when printing on many light-colored garments.

Index separations leave no room for error—it is either dead perfect or not. No faking it here. So, with a 10-power loop in hand, registration was absolutely critical. After the preregistration drop in, several screens would need some tweaking. With some minor micro registration, it was in. Once dialed in, we were on the money...so to speak. First print looked identical to the last and all looked like the original. Gotta love that! The bonus: one happy Rastafarian and a little Ethiopian history education to boot.