Printing on the side of a t-shirt?

October 3, 2010 8:58 AM

Do any of the print-on-demand t-shirt companies out there support printing an image around the side of the shirt, or having a design encircle the entire shirt, a la Charlie Brown?

I've tried a few sites, but haven't found anyone who supports that kind of printing... I imagine it's probably not feasible with the firms that do digital printing only, but is it easier with screen or flock printing? Any ideas?

posted by greatgefilte to shopping (5 answers total)

You can move the design around a lot on Zazzle.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:38 AM on October 3, 2010

You can buy kids/adult Charlie Brown t shirts form various vendors, Halloween/costume shops, e.g. here. (I have not purchased from this store)
posted by carter at 10:04 AM on October 3, 2010

Pretty much all print-on-demand work is done on direct-to-garment inkjet machines these days. You're limited in size and placement by the platen and the stroke length of the print head. I haven't seen one yet that'll do bigger than about 16" x 16".

All-over or wrap screen printing is done using huge expensive belt presses or carousels with flip pallets. You're going to encounter large minimum runs with that sort of screen printing, probably in the 72 to 144 pieces or more range, per design, per order.

If you're looking for a one-off, you might be out of luck. If you do need enough to qualify for screen printing, it'll yield superior quality and wash-fastness to the DTG stuff. The inkjets are coming along, but side-by-side with screen printing, the quality is still not quite there. DTG is mostly a quantity/price proposition when you don't need enough shirts to necessitate screen printing, or you want to be able to offer something like a POD solution for unique things, like letting on-line clients use a template to customize individual shirts.
posted by Devils Rancher at 10:05 AM on October 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure what technique he uses, but I watched the owner of this place cut something out and then place it on the shirt manually, so I imagine he could do what you're looking for. It cost quite a bit more than something like cafepress, though.
posted by needs more cowbell at 10:17 AM on October 3, 2010

I was going to add -- if the print isn't that big, it's not a problem to just load a shirt on the platen sideways so that it prints on the hip / under the arm / what have you. We do this all the time, within our standard image size limitations.
posted by Devils Rancher at 10:20 AM on October 3, 2010 [1 favorite]