Custom T-shirt websites

[Lumi]

Next week, I'm helping to run an event with some friends. We are trying to order custom t-shirts, but I'm growing steadily more dissatisfied with the options before me.

The shirt I want to have made is a generic/men's black short-sleeve t-shirt, with a small pocket graphic on the front (no actual pocket), and a large image printed on the back.

So far, I've gone to CafePress and Zazzle.com. The former jackasses simply do not allow printing on both sides of a dark t-shirt, so they're out. The latter are charging me out the ass for the final product (total for the above described t-shirts is about $35 per shirt). The total order is 23 shirts ranging from adult small to adult XXL.

Does anyone know any other reliable custom t-shirt websites I could look into? I have all my images ready, and I pretty much need to get them in hand by a week from today (Wednesday, July 28th). If I absolutely have to, I'll go with Zazzle and eat the overage, but I'd really prefer not to since we're definitely outside the budget for this part of the project.

[Numbers]

http://www.holyshirt.com/

[ElvenFury]

Just find a local screen-printer. It will probably be cheaper, although they might bust your balls for not getting your order up to at least 32 pieces.

You have to understand though, in that industry there are a lot of pre-press costs (generating art, films, screens, etc) that are fixed costs weather you order 12 shirts or 1,200. So, prices will seem inflated on a small order like that one.

[Abilene]

I do NOT recommend zazzle.
I had quite the fiasco with them. It ended up with me having multiple shirts (in the wrong size) that I couldn't use--which they let me keep--but ended up taking over a month to finally get the right product from them having to re-do. They kept shipping overnight the wrong design/wrong color/wrong size.

O but if you're doing flyers/posters/postcards and stuff like that, let me know, that's what I do here ;D

[Malvadere]

I use http://www.bluecotton.com/ for my business, great interface, awesome customer service. They even gave me a bunch of free stuff because they made one little sizing mistake

[Lumi]

http://www.holyshirt.com/

I will take a look at them, thanks!


Just find a local screen-printer. It will probably be cheaper, although they might bust your balls for not getting your order up to at least 32 pieces.

You have to understand though, in that industry there are a lot of pre-press costs (generating art, films, screens, etc) that are fixed costs weather you order 12 shirts or 1,200. So, prices will seem inflated on a small order like that one.

This isn't the first time I've done a project like this, but in the past, it's always been white t-shirts, so I was able to use CafePress. They were significantly cheaper than they are right now from Zazzle, so that's where my expectations were coming from.

I could try the local screen-printer thing, that's not a bad idea since I'm in NYC at the moment.


I do NOT recommend zazzle.
I had quite the fiasco with them. It ended up with me having multiple shirts (in the wrong size) that I couldn't use--which they let me keep--but ended up taking over a month to finally get the right product from them having to re-do. They kept shipping overnight the wrong design/wrong color/wrong size.

O but if you're doing flyers/posters/postcards and stuff like that, let me know, that's what I do here ;D

Just the shirts, unfortunately ;)

That's...disturbing about Zazzle. I will reconsider going with them, especially if I can find a local printer as EF suggested. Thanks for the warning!

[Gnome Rage]

my RHA at school put me in charge of making our hoodies. We used CustomInk.com, they came out pretty nice. The hoodies were super soft inside and made with good quality. The image came out nicely on the back but the writing on the front was a bit funny (but I think that was the style we chose).

The process to make the shirt is very easy.

[Gallows Thief]

I have used custom ink as well and they were good. I believe they do have a minimum order. A friend of mine orders his business tshirts from vista print and he says they are excellent but I cant vouch for that personally.

[ElvenFury]

This isn't the first time I've done a project like this, but in the past, it's always been white t-shirts, so I was able to use CafePress. They were significantly cheaper than they are right now from Zazzle, so that's where my expectations were coming from.
Not only are white shirts cheaper to make (and thus cheaper for printers to purchase from garment wholesalers), but they're also much cheaper to print on. Darker shirts need more layers of ink to keep the shirt color from bleeding through, which means more time, screens, energy, etc.

[Abilene]

^ And a lot of these places, if you have white in the graphic, they don't print white.. so the white will be whatever the color of your shirt is. Which can really mess up the design of certain things.

[Lumi]

I have used custom ink as well and they were good. I believe they do have a minimum order. A friend of mine orders his business tshirts from vista print and he says they are excellent but I cant vouch for that personally.

Checked out both of these sites, and VistaPrint turned out to be really promising. I'm going with them, thanks very much for the recommendation!

[Gallows Thief]

Checked out both of these sites, and VistaPrint turned out to be really promising. I'm going with them, thanks very much for the recommendation!

No problem! Good luck with it. Hope it turns out well.