
It’s very, very rare that I link to a t-shirt on CafePress, but it’s also rare someone that has a Cafepress shop e-mails me (I think they fear a severe tongue-lashing). However, a good design is a good, design, and I think that this shirt featuring retro robot heads is exactly that.

This is some surprising news. Design By Humans are known for a quality product (though I did have to return an order to them once, they thought the tees were fine, I did not because I don’t like messy printing), CafePress… ummm, not quite as much. I think that CafePress is fine for a 1-colour, text print and that kind of thing, but get technical with a print and you’re just asking for trouble. So when I read that DBH were going to be selling tees at CP I got a bit concerned that the quality just wasn’t going to be there, because whilst it’s no bad thing that they’re exposing themselves to the millions of people that visit CP, they could really hurt their rep by dropping their usual standard. However, my concerns were misplaced, for a change a thread on Emptees provided actual information rather than lolcats and insults, as famed tee designer Jimiyo let it be known that DBH were printing the tees (though they would be printing them onto AA blanks since the CP community know and trust that brand), so hopefully this will be a nice way for DBH to get their name out there and sell more tees.

POD (Print-On-Demand) companies have been around for a while, and they are a great idea, but it’s always hard to tell if what you put on the screen is going to look any good when it’s in your hands, so thankfully Point Click Apparel has arrived to make that choice easier. Site creator MJ (whose well known in tee-circles) has tested several of the major POD players, giving a good critique of each of them, and crucially she is testing them all with the same prints. She gets a regular print done, and a photo print (since all of them print using DTG, which is the easiest way to make a full colour print) and then tells us what she thinks of them. Here’s a list of who she’s tested so far:
Cafepress
Mysoti
Printfection
RedBubble
Skreened
Spreadshirt
Zazzle
It’s a really useful resource, I’ve always hoped someone would do something like this, I’d have done it but I’m far too lazy. So, if you’re using a POD for your printing needs, check it out, because there may well be a better option out there for you.

I seem to be loving the work of other tee bloggers at the moment, because I’ve been
stealing finding a lot of ‘inspiration’ from their posts for a few of my own entries recently, and this tee is no exception.
Liz from Pop Culture Tees claims that this tee is doing the rounds on the ‘net, but I haven’t seen it anywhere else, and I’d like to think I keep my ear to the ground when it comes to
my beloved iPhone (even if it did get too cold to work when my van broke down last week). Oh, and sorry that I didn’t post about this earlier, you could have been the coolest guy/gal at Macworld with this tee.
As a warning to all you Cafepress haters, this tee *might* be supplied by Cafepress, as the website links through to an ‘Exploded Items’ store (though there is just the phone on there) on Cafepress.
Costiness=$19 Buy it at ExplodedPhone.com

[You don't want to know
what happened next]
According to our man in Japan (who, by the way, is in now way ‘ours’), the guys over at Spreadshirt are all about the love, holding a contest with for lovey-dovey designs, with 2 $500 prizes up for grabs. You have until January 15th to get your designs in.
In contrast, the Cafepress crew are bitter and presumably have no one to wine & dine on Valentines (not that I do either, mind you… ladies of Philly, interested?), and are holding an anti-Valentines design competition, with a total prize fund of of $400 worth of gift certificates and an American Express Gift Card up for grabs. The competition is open to US residents only (boo!) and submissions need to be tagged by January 22nd.