Mini-review of CafePress's direct-printed t-shirts

Posted by Tom Moertel Thu, 06 Jul 2006 03:48:00 GMT

As you may recall from a previous post, I set up a CafePress store to sell LectroTest Robot–branded stuff such as t-shirts, hats, mouse pads, magnets, and so on. CafePress does a good job of making their products appear to be of the highest quality, but I am naturally skeptical about such claims.

In particular, I wondered about their t-shirts. The results of their heat-transfer printing process – previously the only option – did not make me happy. Images with transparent areas revealed the transfer background, which over time yellowed and made the image seem to float on a sea of urine.

So when I set up The LectroTest Emporium, I specified the use of CafePress’s newer “direct-printing” process for t-shirts, hats, and every other product for which it was offered. Still, I wondered about the quality.

So I ordered up a LectroTest Robot t-shirt and put it to the test.

Test one: the eyeball and the scanner

When the t-shirt arrived, my initial impression was that it looked pretty darn good. The Robot came out perfectly, and even the pointy parts of the LectroTest lightning rendered without problems. The colors were true, if a little less saturated than I would have preferred.

Compared to silkscreen, the direct-printing process seems to produce results that are a bit less saturated and a bit less crisp. It’s like an airbrush artist rendered the Robot onto a billboard-sized shirt that was carefully shrunken to normal size.

Next, I threw the t-shirt on a flatbed scanner. The results are below. The first image is an overall view of the Robot logo. The second is a 300-dpi close-up of the lettering, where you can see the air-brush effect.

LectroTest Robot on CafePress white t-shirt

Close-up of LectroTest Robot on CafePress white t-shirt

Test two: the iron

To check for color offsetting, I turned the shirt inside out and ironed it on a full-steam, cotton setting. Throughout the ironing, the face of the front-side image was pressed into the white cotton of the back side of the shirt. Nevertheless, none of the ink migrated. The pure white remained pure white.

Test three: the washer

For the final test, I washed the shirt on a normal warm/cold cycle with a small load of other clothes. I then dried the clothing on a medium cycle. (CafePress recommends washing in cold water and drying on low, but nobody pampers their t-shirts like that, and so I tested under more typical conditions.)

When I took the shirt from the dryer, I didn’t see any signs of shrinkage or fading. To double-check, I ironed the shirt and threw it back on the flatbed scanner.

Doing a before-and-after comparison of the scans in the Gimp, I was able to see some shrinkage and fading (see image below). Top to bottom, the shirt shrank by about 4.5 percent; left to right, the shirt actually grew by about 1.8 percent. Minor fading was apparent, especially in the solid black areas. Neither the shrinkage nor the fading were concerning, however; both are typical for t-shirts, especially on the initial washing. The bottom line is that the shirt’s coolness was untarnished.

T-shirt before and after its first wash cycle

Summary

It’s a good t-shirt. It looked cool out of the box and fully captured the metallic fierceness of the beloved LectroTest Robot. The shirt handled a hot-steam ironing without any ink offsetting. It shrank and faded a bit on its initial wash, but neither change detracted meaningfully from the shirt. In sum, CafePress’s direct-printed t-shirts seem like the real deal: they look good and stand up to typical wear and washing.

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  1. Billy said 257 days later:

    Thanks for this valuable and interesting product test!

  2. mds said 267 days later:

    Its about time someone reviewed Cafepress T-shirt print quality. I have been looking to make shirts for years and its reassuring that maybe their direct-printing shirts could be a good deal. I hear their cd’s are horrible though (at leats this was a while back)..

  3. neecheeisdead said 339 days later:

    Thanks for this mini review!

  4. lucidpixel.blogspot.com said 475 days later:

    Thanks a lot for the info, we were going to go with an alternative printer but we think cafepress is a better option thanks to your testing!

    -lucidpixel

  5. Chris Done said 556 days later:

    I was wondering about the quality before making a purchase. Thanks a lot for this review.

  6. A girl said 673 days later:

    Thanks for the review, I was wondering if I should use direct-printing or transfer for my shirts at cafepress, and now I’m definitely going with direct printing.

  7. joey negro said 739 days later:

    Great review! Most people are lazy bastards, but it looks like you actually put in some effort.

    Its because of people like you that makes the Internet such a darn useful tool.

    Thank you.

  8. http://www.dezinedesign.com said 786 days later:

    Thanks for this review, which reiterates my own experience with Cafepress. I also have a store there (we have a group of artists who all sell together under the Dezine Design banner) and I wear my own shirts and use my own-design mugs etc, and I am very happy with the quality, both of printing and of the products themselves. Thanks again for sharing such an in-depth review. Best wishes, Tanya

  9. Daddy Alex said 824 days later:

    Thanks for the in depth review. I will be ordering a few shirts now.

  10. Obama 09 said 869 days later:

    thanks for the info. its good to know what your getting before hand, so thanks again.

  11. NObama 09 said 916 days later:

    Excellent work! I made the mistake of making my first test shirt as a JPG, but now I’ve redone my graphics as PNG files (as CafePress suggests). Hopefully that will give even better quality and resolution.

  12. majestic@wouldbeme.com said 919 days later:

    Hey Tom, I love this idea for us “Geeks”. I just started with cafepress and will do more stores. I was wondering how good the product was. Sounds like you and others give it the thumbs up. The real question is…..have you made a good amount of $$ with cafe press, or is it just not a good biz venue from standpoint of the base, our markup(commision), etc. Curious what you think? Also, have they been really good about sending monthly commission checks? And do you think the site and company itself is very trustworthy? Appreciate your insight. Thanks Laura (aka Majestic) majestic@wouldbeme.com

  13. Tom Moertel said 920 days later:

    @majestic: Laura, I don’t know about the money side of CafePress because I sell my merchandise at cost, so there is never any profit for CP to send me.

  14. daupo said 948 days later:

    I appreciate the effort. I’m considering where to offer some doo-dads for my site, and was likewise concerned about the wear-factor of the products of such a huge enterprise.

    I can also say that they did a good job on a friend’s mugs a couple of years back, my mug still looks good.

  15. Liz said 1039 days later:

    Thank you so much, this was very helpful.

  16. Mel said 1306 days later:

    This was so helpful! I’ve been looking around for a really thorough review of CafePress’ t-shirts. Thanks for posting this experiment.

  17. Guilherme said 1320 days later:

    Thanks a lot for your valuable review.

  18. Nick said 1401 days later:

    I’m awfully happy to have found your review. I’ve just received my new t-shirt and was a bit nervous when I read the care instructions but you’ve just relieved me of my worries. Thank you!

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