OT - screen printing T-shirts

Poststructural Pub
1

Does anyone here have experience with T-shirt printers, or better yet is one? My BHP T-shirt is proving quite popular, but I have decided not to continue to sell them with the ironed-on design. It simply doesn’t last long enough for my conscience. I know I will be albe to sell them, but I am finding them prohibitive to get printed. I don’t care to add yet another thing to do myself to the mix either, though I have done screen printing before.

Anyone know of a good, reliable, decently priced producer that I can contact?

Thanks!

2

I’m not sure if you are buying in bulk or not (I.E. are you looking to sell these to others) but I have used http://www.customink.com for many group functions such as camp t-shirts for the kids at my church. I can’t remember what the minimums are for quantities, etc. but they are really low (you could probably only order half a dozen if that’s all you needed) I think the more you order the cheaper they are per each. They have a large selection of t-shirt styles to print on, everything from cheap quality to premium t-shirts, most are available in many colors and they aren’t ridiculously priced. You should still be able to turn a profit. You can also load your art directly onto the website to see how it looks on the shirt.

-Hope this helps,
Johnny

3

How much is “prohibitive”?

How about http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/? You can see the base prices at http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/sell/products/apparel. Since you get any markup above the base price, you could just buy as many as you want for that price to sell yourself, and also have them available online.

4

Some Costco stores do screenprinting. My husband just ordered 24 T-shirts with the printing in one color for $170. Haven’t recieved the order yet so I don’t know how the quality is.

5

I can’t find anything there that says they are actually screen printed. I suspect that they are thermally applied prints, and that’s exactly what I’m trying to get away from. Those just don’t last long enough.

6

Cafepress prints the design on paper and uses heat and pressure to tranfer the ink to the shirt.

7

My C&F Psychedlic Lady of the Lake T-shirt (the one I’m wearing at the June '04 West Coast Gathering photo at http://www.tinwhistletunes.com/clipssnip/Chiffgathering05.html and http://www.tohu-bohu.com/misc/chiff0406/index.html) is still holding up well, in spite of lots of laundering with liquid bleach. Nothing has peeled, and it’s only slightly faded.

8

Hmmmm… CafePress is sounding more and more attractive, even though the price is high… I wouldn’t have to do anything any more - no driving around, sucking down $3 a gallon petrol to find the right Ts, no figuring out the best price to product ratio, no left-overs, no prewashing them, no printing the design backwards on the paper, no reprinting the design to actually get it rightside up on the paper, no more carefully cutting it out, no burning my finnies getting the thing onto the shirt, no rewashing, no final pressing, no packaging, no mailing, and no ‘errors’… hmmmm…

9

Another plug for CafePress is that they are currently in the process of converting their printing technology over to silkscreen printing. It’s currently only available for the women’s clothing line, but my understanding is that they will eventually make all of their clothing products available in either printing format.

10

Thanks a lot everybody! It’s Cafe Press then… I think I’ll even turn reproduction of our CD over to them… their pricing is good!

www.cafepress.com/sassafrassgrove

11

I don’t know what Cafe Press charges for you the “seller” but they cost a fortune to buy from - typically CAN$40 to ship a t-shirt to Canada from the US. I won’t be doing that one again soon.

There should be lots of places locally who can do this for you. The biggest costs are the creation of the original photo-mechanical transfer (PMT) where they digitally scan your artwork and produce a silkscreen. The more colours involved in your design, the more PMTs they have to make (one per colour). After that, it becomes a matter of quality of the t-shirts you choose, and the quantity you order. As others have noted, t-shirt prices usually come down with the amount of shirts ordered.

Remember, no matter how big you hope your sales will be, you still have to come up with the initial cash to pay the printer for your order.

djm

12

You are absolutely right on the printing stuff. That is why I have not gotten the T-s screen printed - I don’t have the cash to cover the initial costs, what with screen charges, set up fees, etc., on top of the printing and materials costs. It’s very intimidating (about $1600 US for the minimum first order on the black T’s that I prefer.)

I’ve been in the graphics industry for …well… sigh… decades… and espeically in a small area like I live in now, the costs, and time tables are high, and the local availability is nil. I’ll keep your comments on CafePress’s shipping in mind. Thanks!

13

My brother in law bought a great screen printing unit off of ebay for just under $300 (including what when to shipping) a year or two ago.
I have also looked into buying one for myself.

(ot…my bro-in-law was the first to get permission to print Napoleon Dynamite t-shirts locally until the production company got a national contract.)