Sunday, September 7, 2014

Create Your Own Shirt

Thick via Type Tees
Last weekend I went to New Orleans for Southern Decadence. To put a fun spin on the weekend I decided to create custom shirts inspired by my recent post. I used two different companies that offered create your own (CYO) shirt services. Type Tees and Cafe Press. Here are my findings:

Type Tees

Type Tees is an iPhone app created by the folks over at Threadless.com where you can easily create a custom shirt directly on your phone. With the trusted name of Threadless behind it, I decided to give this new one a try. Also I was hoping the shirt quality would be higher than all the other create your own site. 

Pros
1. Ease of Use- Type Tees is very easy to use and it can all be done on your smart phone. 
2. Shirt Colors- There are 15 different shirt colors to choose from. The font and font color selection is also as large. (Don't be fooled by my designs, I just happened to really like the gray and blue combo)
3. Speed- Once you submit your order the shirts are created and shipped very quickly. I was actually shocked at how quick they came.
4. Softness- As I had suspected the shirts from Type Tees were a softer cotton than all the other heavy and stiff CYO shirts I had worn in the past. It was a very similar shirt quality of their sister brand Threadless. 

Belly Size Queen via Type Tees
Cons
1. No pictures- As the name suggests, Type Tees is only for shirts with words or phrases. It does not allow you to add any images or pictures.
2. No tank tops- This is a tee-shirt only service
3. Sizing- I ordered and XL and it fit like a Large. Be prepared to order one size up. Also they only go up to XXL which in reality probably fits like a XL.
4. Not available on Droids. 







Free Rim Jobs via Cafe Press
Cafe Press

I had never purchased anything from Cafe Press but the site has been around for a long time and they are probably the most used CYO shirts company.

Pros
1. Variety of Style- I went to Cafe Press because I specifically wanted to create custom tank tops. Not only did they have tanks, but also ringer tees, regular tees, and several other choices.
2. Customization- With Cafe Press you can add pictures and designs to accentuate your shirt which gives you a lot more freedom for creativity. My Free Rim Jobs shirt would lose all it's cuteness if it didn't have the little bear mechanic to support the pun.
3. Fit- The shirts and tanks from Cafe Press fit very true to the size on the tag. Especially the ringer tee which had the most comfortable fit off all the shirts. Also sizes go up to 4XL depending on which shirt style you choose.

Cons
1. Shirt Color- Although they have wide a variety of shirt styles, they have a very very limited selection of colors. If you want a tank top for example they only come in black or white. Regular tees have an expanded selection of black, white, blue, gray, yellow and green.
2. Softness- The ringer tee was slightly better than I had expected but both tank tops were that cheap thick stiff cotton that is so common amongst CYO shirt companies. 
3.Speed- Cafe Press wasn't slow by any means but because I had ordered from Type Tees first, it felt like they took forever to send me my order.

Thirsty via Cafe Press

It should also be mentioned that the prices for both sites were very similar. I did get the tanks on sale so I saved some coins. Overall I liked both companies for different reasons and I would definitely use both again depending on what kind of shirt I needed. Because Type Tees is an app you can create your shirt the moment you think of it and it feels a little bit more like instant gratification. Cafe Press however allows you many more design options if you don't want to be limited to only a clever phrase. Thumbs up to both and in case you're curious the Thick shirt seemed to get the most positive attention all weekend.

Gold Star Gay via Cafe Press


*Thank you to JPepping for his help and design of the Free Rim Jobs shirt*

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