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Have you ever gotten on an airplane or walked into a restaurant and encountered a whole crowd of people sporting the same t-shirt? While the effect may seem a bit cheesy, there’s definitely something fun and appealing about custom t-shirts that elevate celebrations and special occasions to the next level. They make the perfect swag gift at weddings, too, providing your guests with a unique (wearable) memento.
Custom t-shirts also offer an excellent method of marketing and branding your small business, as well as building community and morale for charitable organizations and local sports teams. Or, they can serve as the perfect, unique, one-of-a-kind gift for your bestie, soul mate, or favorite sibling (not that you play favorites).
Whatever your custom t-shirt needs are, there’s a place online to fulfill them.
There’s something here for every budget and every level of design assistance you may need (including having someone completely design your artwork for you). There are even a couple sites that offer speedy production and shipping times if you’ve left your ordering to the last minute.
The Custom Ink site features an excellent online tool called Design Lab to create your artwork, which includes images and fonts you can incorporate into your design. Plus, their Custom Creations team is available to assist seven days a week. They’ll even send you a sample upon request for complicated designs.
The other cool feature of the site is its fundraising tool. If you’re involved in an organization or cause (small business, charity, school) that you think people would be interested in supporting, you can design a t-shirt and sell it on the site where you’ll raise funds with each sale (buyers can also add donations). Custom Ink takes care of all the logistics and fulfillment of orders for you.
Vistaprint is a huge company that offers custom printing of paper products as well as t-shirts. You can choose to have your design printed in a variety of ways, including direct-to-garment and screen printing.
In direct-to-garment printing the ink is sprayed directly onto the t-shirt and absorbed into the fibers, which means you have unlimited colors and virtually no design limitations. Plus, there’s no minimum order, so if you simply want to create a one-of-a-kind t-shirt with your own custom artwork, you can.
Or, if you want a durable, value option for bulk orders, choose a screen-printed design where ink is applied to the garment through a mesh screen. This creates a design with a smooth, slightly raised feel that you’re likely familiar with in mass-produced logo t-shirts.
You can create your own designs or shop products made by other Zazzle members (similar to an Etsy type experience) on the site. Zazzle also allows you to customize your t-shirt with your favorite logos and images from television, movies, and pop culture, like Sesame Street characters or the Batman logo.
They offer “classic” printing or “vivid” printing. In classic, no white base layer is used and any white present in your design will be printed transparently, allowing the color of the t-shirt to show through. Vivid printing utilizes a white base layer.
The site also includes tutorials and articles to assist you in making your own designs look as professional as possible.
Their online design editor is equipped with a catalog of clip art and design ideas to facilitate your creative process
Underground printing offers a range of t-shirts that you can add your custom design to including, heavy cotton, women’s scoop neck poly-cotton, cotton heritage garment dyed, and a unisex ultra-blend tee from a variety of brands including Gildan, Hanes, Nike, and many more.
Their online design editor is equipped with a catalog of clip art and design ideas to facilitate your creative process. They have in-person locations in 24 states if you think you’d benefit from some hands-on design assistance. Select t-shirts are also available for a fast two-day turnaround.
Canvas Prints has an easy process to upload images and add text. They use 100% cotton t-shirts with no minimum orders. One of the biggest reasons to use them is if you have a design that entails printing in both the front and back of the t-shirt. You can print on both sides for the same price
They offer blind shipping, which removes any Canvas Print logos from packaging and the finished product.
Their online design editor is easy to use and they also have downloadable templates you can open in Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, or Acrobat to create your custom artwork
GotPrint is a large custom printing company (though they are still family owned and run) that offers a variety of custom items including stationary, signs, and apparel. Their online design editor is easy to use and they also have downloadable templates you can open in Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, or Acrobat to create your custom artwork. They also have a reseller/broker program if you’re a graphic designer or print shop owner.
Shutterfly custom t-shirts make the perfect personalized gift. It's super easy to upload your photo and add text. There’s also an online photo editor that allows you to correct red-eye, crop, and otherwise enhance your photos before having them printed. Shutterfly (as you may know) began as a photo storage/photo book printing company. They’ve recently added custom apparel options to their site.
Allied Shirts features an easy-to-use online design tool as well as no minimum quantities on orders. They have templates and a clip art library to use if you need some inspiration. And, if you require even more help, their design services are free if you order 12 or more shirts. With a variety of styles and colors to choose from, Allied Shirts makes it easy to create custom shirts for your local sports team or special event.
Printed Marketplace is an Etsy based shop that sells high-quality t-shirts and hoodies printed with your artwork. After ordering, email your file and they’ll send you a proof within one business day. After your approval, your shirt will ship in one more day. There is no design editor tool, but they’ll assist you with your customization if needed. The shop owner is very responsive and helpful.
Discount Mugs is another huge online retailer offering a wide range of custom products and event swag. They’re great if you're on a serious budget and need a large (we’re talking over 100) number of items (prices start as low as $2.69 each for 5000). Its online design tool is also powerful and easy to use.
And, if you’ve procrastinated on your project, some items are available to receive within one day.
Design Crowd is a service that consists of a community of designers who use your design brief to pitch options for your company or event. When you submit your design brief, you choose your budget, which will determine how many pitches you receive. Then, you pick the one you like the best and have the option to ask for alterations to it.
If you don’t like any of the designs you receive, you can ask for a refund of your budget. This service is great for those who need a large number of custom t-shirts for their company or event and want to hire someone else to design them.
Redbubble is a marketplace similar to Etsy where you can find a wide range of unique and creative products made by small creators and businesses. It’s not necessarily a place where you can create your own design (though you can sell your artwork) but more a place where you’ll be able to find almost anything you can think of on a t-shirt and purchase unique apparel that you won’t see in traditional stores. Each one is custom printed for you when you order it, so shipping times vary. Each artist has a profile that you explore and shop from.
Custom t-shirts are an excellent way to make a statement with your business, special event, or organization. To make sure you end up with the best results possible, though, there are a few things to keep in mind. It’s not just as simple as finding the best white t-shirts for men or women; you need to make sure you have a quality design to put on them.
To ensure your design is of a high enough quality for printing (and won’t come out all pixelated), save it in a high resolution, preferably vector format. Also, do not use anything that may have copyright issues. Most online design editing tools allow you to experiment with different placements of your artwork on the shirt as well as adding in any text. Make sure to choose an ink color that goes well with the color of the shirt.
If you’ve spent considerable time creating a graphic, you probably don’t want to put it on a cheap, low-quality t-shirt. Consider the weight and fabric type you want, as well as the color. Most of the sites included here offer brand name t-shirts of good quality in a wide size range for your custom needs.
There are a few to choose from, including screen printing and direct-to-garment printing. Each has its own individual limitations and advantages (described below in the FAQs). If you’re unsure which is best for your needs, contact the customer service department of the site you are ordering from.
While many companies offer rush production and shipping times, these services often come with a pretty steep cost. Endeavor to plan ahead and allow enough time for printing and shipping.
We selected these best places by experimenting with the online editors of each as well as reading countless reviews and researching company profiles. I’ve designed and ordered a range of custom print projects throughout the years (for my small business) and have personal experience with many of the companies included here. Also, as a film and television crew member, I’ve received a ton of custom-printed t-shirts as wrap gifts throughout my 32 years in the business, so I know a thing or two about different print processes and t-shirt qualities.
The answer to this question lies partially in what kind of image or design you’re printing. Screen printing, a stencil-based technique that has been around for a long time is best suited for designs with fewer colors. It’s also quite durable. Direct-to-garment printing utilizes an inkjet printer and allows you to adorn your t-shirts with complex designs and photographic quality images – though they do begin to wash out over time.
Then there are heat transfer methods which are extremely durable and allow you to print a design that covers the entire t-shirt. There are various heat transfer methods, including all-over-printing, direct-to-film (DTF) printing, and CAD heat transfer vinyl printing, all of which offer excellent durability against fading. Each has its limitations, though. For instance, all-over-printing works best on synthetic fabrics, while DTF creates a print that can feel a bit plasticky and stiff.
A custom-printed t-shirt can cost anywhere from around $10.00 to $50.00 depending on what kind of t-shirt you’re printing on (fabric content, and weight as well as brand) and how complex your design is (how many colors; images and text or just text, etc.).
No—after all, it’s an average price for the best men’s workout shirts. But I should clarify that, as a person who also has a sewing and pattern-making career, I believe that most mass-produced clothing is woefully undervalued and many of the craftspeople who work in factories are underpaid and underappreciated.
T-shirt designs are super easy to create using many of the online design editors available on the sites included in this article. For most, you simply upload your photo or image, then add text or other elements as needed. If you’re interested in a more complicated design or feel yours does not look as professional as you’d like, many of these companies also provide design services and consultations.
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