As you know, a while ago I ordered a black shirt printed with my “geek” design from each of the four main print on demand companies. Cafepress, SpreadShirt, Zazzle, and Printfection. I was surprised to see Zazzle come out on top and slightly disappointed that the shirt from Printfection was not as good as I thought it would be. For the other review posts see here, here and here.
For the second part of my experiment I ran them all through the wash about five or six times to see how the designs would hold up. I washed all the shirts inside out and dried them on delicate. However, the shirt from Spreadshirt was laid flat to dry per the instruction card that came with it. I suspect that the transfer material they used would be prone to shrinking or wrinkling when heated.
I’ve added more scans and closeups on the dark shirt review page.
The shirts from Cafepress and Zazzle held up great. I didn’t see any major differences after being washed. The white outline is still present on the shirt from Zazzle, but in my opinion the vibrant colors make up for it. The white outline on the Cafepress shirt has maybe become a bit less noticeable.
I was happy with the shirt from Spreadshirt when I received it, but after being washed the design has cracked in a few places. I’ve circled the cracks on the closeup. However, it doesn’t matter anymore now that Spreadshirt has switched to direct printing.
I had some reservations about the shirt from Printfection when I received it. It had the advantage of no white outline, yet when I looked closely at the printing it seemed like the ink might be prone to flaking off. After being washed the flaking look is definitely more pronounced. If you compare the before and after closeups you can see the difference.
So, Zazzle has the best dark printing in my opinion. Cafepress does an okay job, apparently my customers are satisfied because I get very few returns, but I would love it if they could rise to Zazzle’s level. Printfection is new and has a lot of room for improvement. Spreadshirt is still up in the air until I am able to order a new shirt with their direct print.
Tags: reviews
Nice. Thanks.
Great review! Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. This is invaluable information. I recently had a design printed on a black shirt from CafePress and it was terrible. I followed all the guidelines, etc. (plus I’m a professional graphic designer) for printing on dark apparel. The print job was just bad, for the most part it had the white outline as well as being “smeared”. Thank you again!
Thanks for this info!!
Really appreciate this as well as your encouragement in other posts!!
God bless!
Hello,
Yes, like everyone else, I just have to say thankyou for the blog. I have a mixed feeling about cafepress and am looking at reviews of their competitors.
Thank you and Happy New Year.
K