Meet Giles of T-Shirt Studio, A Personalized T-Shirt Printing Company

T-Shirt Studio is a company that prints personalized t-shirts and other gifts and garments. The people at T-Shirt Studio take pride in their great customer service, fantastic quality garments, and online design system which is groundbreaking and improving daily. The staff are also very proud of their customer reviews, which are almost exclusively 5-star reviews.

Our interview is with Giles, who says, "I suppose I don't really have a job title. I used to do all the preparation of the customers' t-shirt designs for printing onto the t-shirts, mugs, etc. Now I just do some of the more challenging print material, and I've moved onto other things such as our online marketing and helping to maintain the site. A lot of my time currently goes into helping to develop our t-shirt print preview, which we're adapting to be more realistic. We altering the customers' design so it follows the shape of the t-shirt using CGI. It's only used on a few products right now, but we're introducing it to a new product every week. It's great fun and varied work."

1. How does your site allow people without specialized design know-how to create unique t-shirts?

You'd be amazed how many people just want a couple of large words printed onto a t-shirt. That's easy. And the site allows you to print colored borders in different styles, and metallic text, etc. You can also upload an image for printing. This is the best way of getting exactly what you want: uploading a complete design exactly how you want it, but as you say that requires some design skills. There's two alternatives really. One is to use one of the many personalized templates on the site. There's plenty to chose from. Our most popular right now is the personalized Keep Calm T-Shirt design. You can change the text and the crown icon. It's great fun. The other way is to just ask us to help. We have a box where you can write instructions. We don't mind helping you get your t-shirt design just right and we don't charge extra.

2. What types of image files can be uploaded to use on your site, and how high does the resolution need to be?

The online design software allows you to upload any image format onto the t-shirt, mug, etc. Vector formats (eps, pdf etc) are best, but we're happy working with any format--however, it needs be big if you're printing a t-shirt. Don't assume a big image is a good quality image. The most effective way is to actually take a good look at an image on a large screen and make sure that it looks good. That all sounds a bit weak, but it's the simple reality. The exact print dimensions for our adult t-shirts are 28 x 37 centimeters at 300 pixels per inch, which is 3307 x 4368 pixels.

Most importantly though, we never print a bad image, so if it's no good for printing, we'll let you know so you can change it.

3. What kinds of tees can people create and buy on your site, and what customizable products do you sell in addition to t-shirts?

Our range is currently growing because we're adding a value range to complement our current premium quality garments. We currently have 8 styles of men's t-shirts and 9 women's styles, each available in up to 27 colors, plus kids and babies styles. There are polo shirts, hoodies--zip and standard (the two tone ones are gorgeous!)--sweatshirts, fleeces, and rugby shirts. We do a large range of gifts (too many to explain here) and some fantastic and popular embroidered accessories such as baseball caps, beanies, and scarves. The t-shirts can be printed or embroidered, and also many have a diamante option.

4. What response have you received from customers so far, and are your customers from all over the world?

Every customer gets directed to our review facility after they receive their product. The reviews for each product are displayed on the relevant design page on our site. We've been over the moon with the response. Sometimes I think it must seem that we only show the 5 star reviews because they are almost all 5 stars, but I promise the reviews are handled by an independent company and the feed that appears on the site isn't messed with. It's great that we've had such positive feedback, but we also pay close attention to any that aren't positive. We've recently totally changed how we present sizing information for garments based solely on feedback via the review system.

5. Could you offer a few tips that people can use to create a great original design for their t-shirts?

Try out some of our templates. There's plenty of them and one is bound to meet your needs. Also, don't forget that if you come up with something from the heart, it's bound to be unique. You can do some amazing stuff just using our text tool that allows some great styling options to make your text really pop. Remember to keep text short so it's larger. People often try to say to much on a t-shirt, but it needs to be legible. If you want to use graphics, make sure they're free from copyright, which most stuff on the internet isn't. Type public domain images, or open source graphics, or free clip art or any combination of the above and you'll find things you can use. Most of all just have fun. You can play with the designer all you like without having to register an account or anything, so just check out all the options on the online designer and have some fun with it.

Thanks, Giles!

Meet Koni and Windi of GAWK Apparel

GAWK Apparel is the dream of two sisters, Windi and Koni, who live together in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Specializing in screen printed t-shirts, GAWK stands for Grand Adventures of Windi & Koni, and is symbolic of their unusual journey in life, from growing up apart to getting to know each other and now starting a business together. Windi and Koni grew up without really knowing each other at all, each being raised by their father, Koni in Oklahoma and Windi in California. It wasn't until their mother passed away on February 17, 2007 that they began to get to know one another.

They plan to start out by selling screen printed t-shirts and other apparel through their Etsy shop, as well as through selling products in person at arts events. They hope to expand into custom and wholesale orders. For now, they are funding the start of their dream through a campaign to raise $2000 on Indiegogo; as of March 2, they had reached 10% of their goal.

Keep up with their latest grand adventures on Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook. The interview below is with Koni.

1. What made you decide to start a screen printing business?

Windi and I have both always been really interested in art. Myself digital art and graphic design. Windi is more of a pencil and paper sort of girl. We've done a lot of things where she draws something on paper, and I scan it, clean it up in Photoshop, add backgrounds, etc. We've also both always been interested in clothing design. We both altered our clothes when we were in high school. Put on patches, restructured t-shirts, etc. It just makes sense to put the art we make together on clothes. What better way to do that than screen printing? We can put just about anything on pretty much anything. It gives us a lot of creative liberty.

It's just time to do our own thing and build something that is ours. We have the space to do it. Where we live is the perfect location. Everything in life is pushing us in this direction.

2. How do you get the ideas for your designs--would you say you have certain subjects you especially like to include in your designs?

We're very random and anything could inspire us. The cat with a mustache design was inspired by our cat, Phoebe. She has a mustache, so next thing you know we have a mustached cat design. I also have three kids and they spout off random nonsense things, like kids do, and it makes me think of ideas. Most of our designs will most likely be animals doing human things or having human features. It's just silly and fun to see animals acting all people-like.

3. What are the challenges and what are the fun parts of starting up this new business?

The biggest challenge would have to be figuring out the financial aspect of everything. I've been going cross-eyed with tax laws, comparing wholesale supplier costs, and researching what other screen printing companies charge for custom orders, etc. We have to make sure we are going to cover costs, make a profit, but be within the industry average pricing.

The fun part is the excitement of doing something that is ours! We are starting this business. As long as we stay within legal guidelines, we can make and do whatever we want. That's exciting. Seeing all our friends being so supportive and excited, too, is really fun. I didn't expect people to believe in us to the extent they do.

4. Do you envision most of your sales coming from online customers or from customers you meet in person, or both?

At first they will mostly come from online. It will probably take us a little bit of time to get the hang of everything, as far as packaging, seeing what designs are most popular, etc. Once we have those things mastered, we'll start making more sales in person. We want to work booths at trade shows and art shows and eventually set up a small store front. We also want to do custom orders and bulk orders. Most of those type of orders would probably come from local sports teams, schools, and groups. So, as the business grows, more business will start to be offline sales.

5. How did your relationship as sisters evolve into a business partnership, too?

Windi has lived with me for two years now. We didn't know each other growing up, so we don't have the typical sister relationship that other sisters have. I don't have a typical relationship with any family, so I don't really have a personal understanding of those relationships. Because of this I never know how to answer these types of questions.

A majority of the time she has lived with me it's been very financially stressful around here, and everyone is just doing what we can do to keep the bills paid. We have all that space in the garage that isn't being used. Both of us have been out of work for months now. It's been rough. It just made sense to start doing something together to turn our financial situation around. If no one wants to hire us, fine. We'll make our own work. Sitting around and waiting for things to get better won't help anything. We have the skills to make it better, so we are.

Thanks, Koni!