Way back in the early 2000s, when we started printing t-shirts, we did all of the work ourselves. We bought a heat press, and lots of rolls of flock and plastic, and printed every single t-shirt by hand. Direct-to-garment digital printing hadn’t really been invented yet, sublimation printing was in its infancy, and this light-reflective film was pretty much the height of the technology that was available to us at the time.
The up side of printing every single garment individually was that we could offer a lot of flexibility. We quite often printed onto customers’ own t-shirts, and we also had a range of unusual-at-the-time items such as printed shirts, ties, and even underwear!
The down side of printing every single garment individually was that it took AGES. The more intricate designs took a long time to weed away the excess film, and the multi-coloured ones required several passes through the heat press. As a result, despite appearing to be successful in the numbers of t-shirts that we sold, I was never able to pay myself, and we didn’t recoup the costs of the printing kit until we eventually sold it all.
Nowadays, there are lots and lots of on-demand direct-to-garment printers around, and the printing quality from the ones I’ve tried (Inkthreadable, Qwertee, Redbubble and TeeFury) has been excellent. My only quibble with some of these sources, as you know, is a lack of plus-sizes in women’s garments.
I’m working on a range of new t-shirt designs (like the one above) at the moment, and I must admit I’m looking at Redbubble and wondering whether my designs, or perhaps some of Miss Mouse’s photographs, might work well on coffee mugs and cushion covers as well as t-shirts.
You’ve seen Miss Mouse and the Woodland Gang’s tote bags in the shop, of course. I chose Inkthreadable to print these for me because they have both organic cotton tote bags, and these which are made from recycled polyester and cotton waste from the garment industry. They also have a range of organic t-shirts, which I’d much prefer to be using over non-organic, but if their sizing isn’t inclusive… I don’t know. I don’t want to get to that place where my shop has so many different options that it’s too confusing to buy something as simple as a t-shirt, but at the same time I do want these things to be available to as many folks as possible.
I have dipped my toes into the water of Redbubble with two notebooks featuring Miss Mouse in Autumn and in Winter.
They’re printed in and shipped from the UK – unless you’re buying them from outside Europe, in which case they’re printed in and shipped from America. As with all print-on-demand products, there’s no next-day shipping, as the notebooks literally don’t exist until you order them! And making things takes time, even for large companies with (presumably) oodles of people and printers. So delivery usually takes about a week.
For instant gratification, I’ve also ventured into the world of downloadable items over on payhip. They host any items that I want to make available as digital downloads, and they handle all of the complicated tax paperwork for me which means that I don’t have to sign up for VATMOSS straight away.
I’ve started with Miss Mouse’s magazines, so if you missed the Winter 2016 edition which is sold out in print, this is the place to get it. It’s also the place to get not only the Woodland Gang’s Celebrity Magazine, but also the circus poster and the Woodland Times newspaper that originally went out only to Miss Mouse’s Patrons. There is just one copy of this magazine available in print, but it doesn’t include the poster or newspaper.
I’ve also uploaded some A4 diary pages. I designed these for myself, and have been using them to keep all of my University and volunteering activities organised.
If you’ve known me for a while you’ll be well aware that I have a terrible addiction to all kinds of diaries and planners… and also a total inability to remain faithful to one for an entire year. These A4 pages are undated, so I can print out a few, write the dates underneath the days of the week, and when I get bored with them or decide that a different format would better suit my needs, I can design something new! That way I don’t end up buying two or three different diaries each year, as I can just print out new pages whenever I need them. It also means that I don’t need to carry around an entire year in one go! At the moment I have three months’ worth of pages tucked inside a plastic wallet, and that’s so much more convenient – and a lot less heavy! – than hauling around a giant organiser. I strongly suspect that more of these will be forthcoming, particularly once I start back at University and need to keep track of all my lectures and deadlines.
I must admit that, as a lifelong hands-on maker, it does feel a little bit weird to be handing over the manufacture of my designs to a third party. But, with the best will in the world, I’m not going to set up a printing studio in my office (unless I suddenly come into possession of an entire letterpress workshop, which seems unlikely!), and this way I don’t have to buy boxes full of t-shirts or other printed items that may well sit on a shelf for years un-sold.
So, all in all, I’m going to say hooray for the third party!