November 17, 2004

Curious, George: T Shirt Printing? I'm vaguely wondering about a t shirt promo-type-arrangement for my little old netlabel (no gratuitous self-link, it's noted in my profile for any monkey that wants to see) but I know that cafepress can't do exciting things like print on black - which essential for an experimental electronica label, i reckon!

My question is, then: Do any of our lovely monkeys know a better solution than Cafepress? Bearing in mind that I'm in the Antipodes and all... (apologies if this has been asked before and i'm too daft to find it...)

posted by prismatic7 20 years ago
  • Have a look at the recent thread on printing MonkeyFilter t-shirts. There's a couple of good suggestions in there. Sorry, I haven't set up a voting page for MoFi designs yet!! Please feel free to kick me.
  • I, for one, welcome our black-clad experimental electronica label overlords.
  • hehe! Richer memed me! but seriously, i was thinking of printing up tees with a version of the label's logo on the front, and 'chin-stroking IDM wanker' on the back... coz it's true! tracicle: i did look at NoSweat, mentioned in that thread, but I don't think i qualify, not being a student, church group or non-profit, or a retailer with a brick-and-mortar store...
  • askme
  • Try Monkey Drive (monkeydrive.net).
  • Also on AskMe: 1 2 3 4 + some linked from these threads.
  • On a slightly related tangent, I just bought a 1" button maker. So if any of you monkeys need buttons, you know who to call.
  • oh Cali... wow... *flutters long monkey lashes*
  • Making T-shirts is easy. All you need is a screen, some ink, a transparency, and some liquid light. About any art supply store can give you the materials. Then you'll be PUNKROCK!!11one!
  • do it yourself - you should be able to put together a basic screen-printing setup (a couple of screens, squeegee, emulsion & some ink) for around $60-70. check out the screen-printing forum on Craftster - plenty of how-to resources.
  • Last time I had a project like this I shopped around the local screen printers (just look up printing in the yellow pages) and came up with a pretty good deal for a relatively small scale (a couple hundred shirts). A good shop will have the knowledge to do what you want and will probably be able to get you a deal on the shirts as well. Things to watch for - the setup charge. Make sure you know if they are going to prep the artwork for you, shoot it, do color separation if necessary, and what all that will cost. It is a one-time cost (be sure they will clean, and store your screens for you when the project is done, they can be reused many times) but it tends to be high compared to pulling actual prints. In one case I outsourced the prep on a complex piece and it was a better deal than the printer's charge. Find out what their policy is on rejects, printers do not necessarily eat the cost of bad prints in a run, but their policies should be reasonable and account for their error. Find out what the volume discounts are, consider your needs (I have, yes, a couple boxes of one ill-conceived or perhaps just poorly marketed t-shirts that have been lurking in my basement waiting for me to get off my can and do something about it for about 5 years), etc. My opinion is that in many cases, people overestimate how much print-on-demand stuff costs compared to DIY or outsourcing to volume-oriented pros. Often the set-up and volume requirements are lower than they expect so it's worth a little research, with sample art and specs any good printer should give you a decent ballpark on a range of options. Others have noted screen printing yourself is not that hard. It's not. But it takes time, takes spacem it has a learning curve, and its messy. If you like DIY and are good with the mechanical it can be done. But you may have problems actually making the screen for anything that's not simple, and multi-color processes of course multiply the complications and potential errors, so take all that into account. You can get screens made and then keep them and use them yourself. If you go this route - KEEP YOUR SCREENS CLEAN. If you let the ink dry on them they're usually ruined and you're out the setup.
  • Cali: azul, the MeFi button guy, has gone off-line (his user page now just says "I live simply"), so I may be in contact with you about some buttons... and also about finding a cheap place to live up the coast from L.A... soon...
  • hm... youse monkeys is all teh awesome. i now have more than enough ideas to check out! yay! i'm thinking my initial run should be for the friends who have supported the label, a few for purchase when i finally have a launch party, some for the website, and of course any monkey as wants one need only write - so long as you l0v3 t3H |\/|00z1kz0rz!!!!1
  • So I can be the MoFi button girl? Sweet. And prismatic7, I'd be happy to do a small run of buttons if you have the artwork. Maybe in exchange for some musical goodness?
  • drop me an email, cali, and let's do some wheelin' and dealin'! (and buttoning... um.)