Good online shops for custom tee shirts?

July 19, 2023 12:52 PM

I would like to make some custom tee shirts. Googling custom tee shirts turns up a whole bunch of sites that seem... not shady, really, but fly-by-night-ish and probably not terribly concerned with quality control. Googling best custom tee shirts mainly just shows those same sites each explaining why they're the best. Does anyone know of any online shops that they have been happy with? Some more details inside.

They would be one-offs (or possibly few-offs) for my own personal use; I'm not interested in setting up a business to sell them or anything like that.

Regarding quality, one thing that I really dislike is when the ink cracks/flakes. I've read a bit about the various methods of printing tee shirts, and I gather that despite the fact that this happens gradually, it's largely the result of poor quality control during production. I would very much like to avoid such issues on my shirts.

Another potential quality issue: I'd like a reasonable quality fabric. I don't know, but I imagine that a lot of these places might just use the thinnest, cheapest thing they can find.

Thanks in advance.

posted by Flunkie to Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion (11 answers total)

Ask around locally for a screen-printing shop recommendation.
posted by TimHare at 1:23 PM on July 19, 2023 [3 favorites]

You should be able to sign up as an "artist" on redbubble and upload designs as private as per this link. I've bought shirts from them before and have no complaints about the quality.
posted by reptile at 1:26 PM on July 19, 2023 [3 favorites]

As per reptile, I've heard good things about Redbubble. I've used VistaPrint many times for making T-shirt gifts and have been very pleased with both the quality and longevity.
posted by bryon at 1:28 PM on July 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

A friend uses redbubble and I also recently ordered from teepublic. Print on demand, and the quality from both is quite good, so the technology seems to have advanced.

I seldom put tshirts in the dryer; I line dry them, but in the past frequent, hot dryer use affected the ink flexibility.
posted by theora55 at 1:30 PM on July 19, 2023 [3 favorites]

I have had recent luck with Bonfire and past luck with Custom Ink for small orders.
posted by mcgsa at 1:44 PM on July 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

Fourthing RedBubble. I have t-shirts from there that are getting on for five years old with regular wear and so far minimal ink crackage, and I do not do laundry gently. The shirts themselves are Gildan which seems to be pretty solid and have no side seams. I have most experience with their black, navy, and heather grey which are all excellent quality. Pricing is about the same as any other graphic tee in my part of the world, and cheaper than most 'official merch' graphic tees.

You don't have to make your design public, and if you put it up and order it on roughly the same day you can get a tshirt that should technically be subject to a DMCA takedown. I have many batshit insane Star Wars tshirts I got through this process.
posted by ngaiotonga at 2:03 PM on July 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

If you can find a silk-screener that uses the water based process for the printing then that does away with the plastisol flexibility problem.
posted by MonsieurPEB at 2:25 PM on July 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks everybody. I'll give Redbubble a try (and try to remember to come back to mark "best answers" if it works out well for me).
posted by Flunkie at 2:53 PM on July 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

Gildan or Comfort Colors are good options for the garments. If you do the printing with a sublimation process instead of silkscreen you won’t run into the cracking ink situation, and you can get a much wider range of colors- unfortunately I think you can only do sublimation on polyester.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 4:43 PM on July 19, 2023

I've used Canva to design t-shirts and ordered directly from them (or whoever does it for them as a white label) and I was very satisfied with colors and the feel of the fabric and design. It was a gift so I'm not sure of long term quality. Price about $20. They seem to run small. I also use Threadless for a few nonprofits and I'm very happy with their quality, especially the "extra soft" option. These are not "one off" per se, but you can do it that way. I've had a few of their tshirts for a few years and quality is ok, no flaking though some fading after a few years.
posted by j810c at 6:11 PM on July 19, 2023

Sticker Mule has fantastic quality t-shirts. They happen to have a sale for a one-off right now if you go look at their Deals page.
posted by Nerro at 8:16 AM on July 20, 2023