The first shirts arrived today. The good: -The print quality is decent and it seems very durable. -The timeline looks almost perfect on the white shirt. Some of the font is a little hard to read, but I couldn't ask for more here. It's a little big though -The shirts material seems to be high quality. The bad: -On white, the Tweak3D logo isn't quite as sharp as I'd hoped. The colors aren't as bright as they are on the actual image, but I guess it's asking a lot for the blues to be duplicated perfectly. -On black, I must've made a couple mistakes because the text has a slight white border on the right side of the letters. It actually looks good like this, though. Also, it didn't print the surrounding area "transparent", so there's a visible square in certain lights. It's very subtle and may wash out, but I'll have to see. Overall I am pretty happy. Both white and black look good. I did not order the IDB shirt yet, but I will on the next batch. I plan to make a few small changes to the dark logo and add the URL below the logo text, then order a couple more shirts before I open shop (unless we find another distributor that can outdo Cafepress for quality and ease of use). I can take pictures tomorrow if you guys would like to see them. edit - the crossedout text above is due to a normal process. There was an information sheet with the shirts that explains it disappears after a couple washes.
I put them in the washing machine but I will upload pics if this stuff gets done before I fall asleep. I've been up since 2 AM though. Ah yes, except the model might be an ugly white dude this time around.
Here are a few pics I snapped. The quality isn't the best of these photos but I will try to get some better ones tomorrow. I'm also looking at another site that makes shirt designs, and might have them test a couple shirts before I settle with one company.
The verdict is that as-is, they look great from about 2 feet away, but not less than a foot. The timeline looks good from basically any distance because it contrasts the white so strongly. The font is a little hard to read on some of the words (like "ninefivezero") and I could try a slightly larger font, but it's pretty sweet already.
gahahaha!!! hilarious! so... are these the shirts were gonna get? the ones with scanlines from a foot away? wash it a couple times and get back to us
I'm debating on ordering a couple more from another store just to be sure these are going to be the best. There aren't really scanlines, it's just a little fuzzier than I'd hoped on the white shirts. Probably because it's light blue on white, so I have a few ideas how I could change the logo slightly to make it more appealing on that design. I also have to add the www.tweak3d.net under the logo to see how it looks. I don't really feel comfortable listing and selling them until I've got it right, since I imagine we'll sell at least 50 of them, so please bear with me while I try a few more. I'll report back as soon as I find new info. Edit - after closer inspection, I see what you meant about "scanlines". Those are the circuit traces running through the text. Maybe I could hide some of it on the circuits on the white shirt so it's clearer...
ahhh i see! okay! i retract that statement then.. shiiitt, let us know how they stand up to washing and imma get one asap.
I really want one with my username/avatar and tweak3d on the back Other than that, they look pretty good!
Hey guys, just an update... I've extensively tested the CafePress shirts now and I'm not super happy with the quality of the black shirts. The heatsink area has begun to crack a tiny bit after 5-6 washes and about a dozen wears -- I was careful when washing and always turned the shirt inside-out as well. The price was also pretty high ($43 my cost for the two shirts, shipped). The white shirt looks good still, and I realized when I originally submitted it, I used the wrong DPI which explains the blurriness in the photos above. I fixed the problem though. Today I created some on Printfection, and should have my test shirts in 5-10 business days (about 2 weeks). These will be cheaper (which is nice for everyone) and used a higher-quality proof (2700x3300 vs 2000x2000 of CafePress), so I'm hoping they look nicer. If not, we'll default to the CafePress ones. If you want to risk** ordering the CafePress shirts, they are available here: http://www.cafepress.com/tweak3d Otherwise I'd suggest you wait until I test the Printfection shirts which I will talk about more once they arrive. I will also be making an IDB shirt and an Avatars shirt of some type later, and of course, anything you guys suggest. I just wanted to link to something for now since I'm sure many of you wanted them months ago. ** -- I say Risk because I have not ordered this exact shirt yet. The "value" shirt is their cheapest one; I put it on there with $0 markup so people can test it and represent T3D without spending a lot if they want. The "Fitted" shirt has the Timeline on the back side. I don't know how good the black or white quality prints are, but I put more time into planning this one, so I can't imagine they're worse than the ones I posted before. There's a $2 markup per shirt on all others, which will be used for buying/testing more shirts for myself. I also have not tested the IDB shirt, so be warned I don't know WTF it looks like yet, how the colors or fit are, and so-on. Updates to come later!
I asked for a specific t-shirt, with "WWT3D DO ?" on the front, and "IDB" on the back. So if I'm not the only with interest, I guess we will order more!
I have received the next batch of shirts. These ones came from Printfection.com. Overall I'm very happy the quality this time. The white one looks much sharper than the previous batch -- as good as any other shirts I own. The timeline is very sharp, too. The black is not quite as good as with Cafepress. It is a bit darker, but sharper. I will set up both stores and explain more in detail later tonight/tomorrow, but for now here are some ugly/rushed pictures (ignore the wrinkles ): I will be resizing the logo a tiny bit on the final shirts. This one is a little wide on my shirts (these are size small) but another 1/2" or so off the logo would make it fit a little nicer. I will test these after a few washes and get back to to this thread but the final shirts should be ready within a week.
