# No two pulls landed in exactly the same place > Three screen layers pulled by hand, and two of them miss the register by a few millimetres each. That gap is a measurement of a real pull, and it makes every shirt in the run different. August 21, 2026 · https://justog.club/stories/the-print-that-didnt-line-up A star inside a square, in three colours. Where the layers land on top of each other, new colours appear that aren't on any ink can. Where they don't, the bare shirt shows through in hard slivers. Cyan is off by about four millimetres, low and to the left. Magenta is off by about three, high and to the right. Only the black sits where the artwork said it should. ## What do the slivers of bare fabric actually prove? That three separate screens were pulled by hand, one at a time, and none of the three pulls landed in the same spot as the artwork. Each colour in a screen print is a separate pass — align the screen, pull the squeegee, lift it, move to the next colour. A machine holding the screen in a fixed jig would put every pass in the same place every time. A hand doing the aligning shifts by a few millimetres each pull, and the sliver of visible garment where two colours were supposed to meet is the direct, physical record of that shift. ## Why does four millimetres matter as a specific number? Because it's a measurement, not a description. "Slightly off" could mean anything. Four millimetres left and low is the actual distance the cyan screen sat from where the artwork placed it on that particular pull — a real displacement, on a real piece of fabric, caused by a real hand setting a real screen down. The number is what turns "hand- pulled" from a claim on a label into something you can check with a ruler. ## Does this mean every shirt in the run is different? Yes, in a way a machine run structurally can't be. A single screen aligned in a fixed jig produces fifty identical prints, because the jig removes the variable a hand introduces. Pull the same three screens by hand fifty times and you get fifty different registrations — some closer than others, none identical — because each pull is a separate physical event with its own small error. The variation isn't a flaw to correct out; it's what a hand- pulled run actually is. [A number written by hand in a run's corner records the same fact from the other side](/stories/hand-numbered-thirty-seven-of-fifty) — not that the print is imperfect, but that a person did the work once for each copy. ## Isn't misregistration usually a mistake to fix? In a print job where the goal is an exact match to a proof, yes — a printer would reset the screens and pull again. Here the goal is different: keeping the visible evidence of the pull rather than eliminating it. [A two-colour riso print carries its own version of the same offset](/stories/protest-poster-riso), though that format reads the gap as urgency, a job run fast because it was needed the next day. This one isn't about speed. It's about the run not being identical copy to copy, however long each pull actually took. ## What decides how far off a pull can go before it stops working? Whether the artwork still reads as the shape it's supposed to be. A star inside a square survives several millimetres of drift because the two shapes are simple and distinct enough to stay legible even shifted. A design with fine detail or small type would lose its content entirely at the same displacement. The tolerance is set by the artwork's own shapes, not by a fixed rule for how much offset is acceptable. ## Can this be done with any cut shape, or does it need a specific tool? Any shape that can be cut into a screen works, including something cut from cardboard rather than photographic film. [A stencil cut by hand from a cereal box carries its own tool marks the same way](/stories/the-stencil-cut-from-a-cereal-box) — rougher edges, over-cut corners — which is a different, earlier stage of the same hand-made production chain this print comes out of. ## Can I use a real emblem here instead of an invented star? If a specific real mark is the point, it needs the same permission any artwork needs — whoever drew it owns it, and that's true whether it's printed by machine or pulled by hand. An invented shape carries none of that requirement, which is most of why a simple geometric star and square work well here: nobody has to be asked, and the misregistration is free to be the whole subject rather than competing with a mark that has its own meaning attached. ## Does it print well? Yes — flat colour, hard edges, and the misregistration is part of the finished art rather than something to correct in production. Chalk white or another pale, neutral ground lets the slivers of bare fabric read clearly against the three inks. Keep the shapes simple: a star and a square hold their identity even shifted a few millimetres, where fine detail would just blur into the gaps. ## How do I get one made? Describe the shapes at [JustOG](/) — what they are, which colours, and how far off you want the layers to sit. Pick a direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and it's made to order and shipped. Designs other people have published are in the [shop](/shop). The next pull off the same screens would land somewhere else again.