A T-Shirt, but at what cost

Just came across these two articles around the same time and I am interested in this sort of thing as you might imagine so I thought I would pass them on to you, my faithful readers. They both have a similar theme, not the same…similar.

The True Cost of a $2 T-Shirt is a podcast about labor conditions in the Cambodian textile industry which has one of the largest textile industries in the world making clothes for huge brands such as GAP and Japan’s Uniqlo.

The high cost of cheap t-shirts takes a different route and talks about the environmental impact of mass producing clothes.

Fuel for Design: Start your own t-shirt business

Fellow t-shirt blogger, Gino Orlandi, has just released an e-book titled Fuel for Design, A Powerful Guide to Starting Your Own Clothing Line. On the books website he mentions that starting a t shirt business has never been so popular. This does seem to be true as online t-shirt stores seem to be popping up everyday and if you include shops on the PODs like Cafepress and Zazzle we might find that new stores are appearing every few minutes.

The title of the book and the claims that are made on the website about it are almost enough (still considering) to make me buy it. I have reservations though because I’m not sure that the author really has the necessary knowledge or experience to write such a book. On the one hand he’s a t-shirt blogger so he will have gained some knowledge of t-shirts and their trends from that but he has only started blogging about t-shirts this year so the aforementioned knowledge and experience is limited. Also he has experience starting his own t-shirt business but, assuming he is talking about his Big Cartel store, he hasn’t actually launched it yet.

I spent countless hours researching and planning my own t shirt line, making sure it was done right and I have decided to share everything I have learned while running my own blog and t shirt line with others.

I think he should have waited a year or more before finishing this book and then he would have some real business experience. Unless this book gets some endorsements from people with experience in the t-shirt business I guess I’ll be holding on to my $37 for a little while longer.

Success with Cafepress.com is a similar guide was written by Daniel Clark about how to be successful at POD service Cafepress. He had years of experience with Cafepress when he released this book and also got a lot of help from other shopkeepers. Combined with the low cost of setting up a Cafepress (or other POD) store, this book may be a much better entry entering the t-shirt business than Fuel for Design. Time will tell though.

Success with Cafepress.com is $27.99 + shipping for a book you can hold in your hands. Some sections may be a bit dated at this stage as it was published over 2 years ago. Fuel for Design is $37 for an ebook.

Yet Another T-Shirt Search Engine

The guys at ShirtSeek.com told me about their site about a week ago but I didn’t want to post about it too quickly as some people might think that this is a blog mainly about t-shirt search engines after having just made posts about Teenormous and PleaseDressMe. Actually this is my favorite of the three search engines partly because it doesn’t discriminate against PODs such as Cafepress and Zazzle. Whats more though, is that not only can you submit your shirts or other people’s shirts you can also share in the affiliate profits generated by this site. Can it get any better than that? Well. Yes. You can also rate and comment on the designs.

The design is very simple but I like it. The only criticism I have is that I don’t like the way the designs look on the little pencilled shirts. I think showing the actual t-shirt would look much better and also help us choose our shirts faster.

I don’t know how many shirts they have in their database but hopefully the guys will step up and let us know.

Well my litmus test is once again Obama.

Shirtseek: 24
Teenormous: 32
PleaseDressMe: 16

Design by Humans

Design by Humans is a pretty famous t-shirt store but reasonably new I believe. It has a similar business model to Threadless. People submit designs and they are voted on/chosen and the designer gets money. I will provide details in a later post. Today I ordered two shirts which I will review when I get them. You can check them out below or even better, go to the Design by Humans website and pick out a few for yourself.

I also found this coupon [DBHTHS] on the web which gave me 10% discount. I don’t know when it expires though.

Political T-Shirts at T-Shirt Hell

Those familiar with T-Shirt Hell will know that they don’t pull any punches when it comes to t-shirt designs but even so I think that these Obama and Clinton Tee Shirts are not totally tasteless. In fact they are pretty funny. The Bros Before Hoes T-Shirt has been done many times with Clinton and Obama (I’m not saying that they weren’t the first) but this is a pretty version. In fact one of the best I can remember seeing.

I did notice though, that apart from the second design shown here they are not as hard on Obama as they are on Hillary. Maybe it’s just that Hillary is better material, but I kind of think that the T-Shirt hell mob might be voting for Barrack Obama this year (assuming he gets the nomination).

Assuming you have read to the end of this post before clicking on the links to T-Shirt Hell, I warn you it is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.

Paddy’s Day T-Shirts

Here are some stylish Paddy’s Day T-Shirts from Rude Retro’s posse. They are simple and have a cool vintage look that allows you to wear them well after Paddy’s Day is over.

St. Patrick’s Day T-Shirt 2008 by ruderetro

Saint Patricks Day T-Shirt by ruderetro

Why This Blog – The T-Shirt Review

There are plenty of tee shirt blogs out there so you may be asking why we need another. The answer is of course that we don’t need another but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. Options are always a good thing and that is what this t-shirt blog is. It is an option and hopefully it will be a good option.

We all have different tastes and in this blog you will learn about mine. I will not only discuss tee shirts that I would wear but also t-shirts that I find funny, interesting or just plain wrong. I will also discuss the various POD’s that are available and maybe give some tips on show to make or even sell your own tee shirts. If you have any questions or requests feel free to contact me.