Organic or Organized - that is the question.

Google has gone through a massive change with the suggestive refreshing of results for searches in the drop down menu. Although I have tried many things for business over the years t-shirts are the one product line that keep pulling me back in. I've been working with this website as a t-shirt store online called, T-shirts.org, but it has done little in the way of increasing my sales for Organic T-shirts. I stare blankly at the horizon and wonder if I have put my eggs in the right basket with that website and once I reviewed the words that are associated with Google through the pull down search function I can't find hardly any searches for t-shirts organic. Now I am thinking that I should redirect my web efforts for t-shirts.org to "T-shirts Organized"

I've reviewed the many words that are associated with t-shirts and I am going to fill this page with the results. Simply put I need to regenerate these words into categories and then build my little TshirtVille on an organic platform sorted by the world of search results. Underlying this optimized organization will be the products or links to products that people need as they relate to t-shirts, t-shirt printing and blank t-shirts, my specialty.

My first step of organizing a t-shirt website is to categorize the searches. These are some general categories I have created, location, store, items, how to, artwork, supplies, wholesale, style and printing. I am working on placing the first wave of results into these categories, which were quickly associated with the phrase results of the first 100 results, so I expect this association and organization to change as I dig deeper into this project. For now I am simply going to create the categories and build pages that associate with the basic structure. Here are the words that seem to relate to t-shirts via Google. These results may be localized and formatted to fit my profile on Google, but I've got to start somewhere.

printing
design
quilt
maker
man
mockup
clipart
guys
graphics
junkie
king
land
lyrics
logo
outlet
ology
uk
pros
quilting
citynames
ville
tv
wholesaler
z
shop
shack
iwant
online
for sale
in bulk
vintage
stencils
styles
store
supplies
world
art
and more
buttons
bulk
blank
bands
blog
big and tall
by the dozen
custom
cheap
cool
café
company
clipart
china
cape cod
designer
designs
design your own
deals
direct
designs for women
east lansing
elk horn
embroidered
express
ed hardy
etc
houston
embroidery
batavia
for sale
funny
for women
for kids
for men
from movies
for printing
for a cause
for teachers
graphic
geek
gildan
grand rapids
games
galore
girls
graphic design
history
hawaii
hoodies
hangover
hanes
heat activated
hoboken
hip hop
humorous
in bulk
into quilts
ideas
in las vegas
in spanish
india
ink
in russian
in movies
japanese
junk food
jersey shore
jacksonville
junggesellenabschied
jokes
jesus
jackson
japan
made fast
mugs
made by humans
made
made in usa
new orleans
neon colors
new york
next day
nerd
norfolk
nyc
nashville
numbers
on demand
on sale
online store
order form
oil spill
plus
plain
printing machine
press
printed overnight
political
peru
quotes
quality
queen street
quick
family renunion
custom t-shirts quick
funny t-shirts quotes
football t-shirts quotes
cool t-shirts quotes
r us
rock
outlet
overnight
running
rock bank
retail
reno
retro
redding
review
bend oregon
san mateo
san jose
sale
size chart
screen printing
store
styles
sayings
san mateo
sf
san francisco
that fit
transfers
that change color in the sun
to go
to order
that say awesome
topeka
that change color
unlimited
urban
unique
under 10 dollars
under 5 dollars
usa
under dress shirts
uk
urban outfitters
united
vintage
vistaprint
vancouver
vancouver wa
vector
vector free
vintage uk
victoria
victoria bc
ville
wholesale
with sayings
with quotes
wiki
wholesale printing
with funny sayings
with logos
with pockets
with photos
websites
xxl
rock t-shirts xxl
vintage t-shirts xxl
coheed and cambria
metal t-shirts xxl
world cup t-shirts youth
mario t-shirts youth
youth
zazzle
custom t-shirts z

An endless array of unfinished projects

I realize the difference between being young and old is that when I was younger I worked intensly on a project and became obsessed with the tools and skills related to a subject until I moved on to another subject. Now that I am older I have every project that I have ever worked on going on simultaneously and my concentration is limited due to the amount of time I can spend on each thing. I feel that at some point all of these different hobbies will merge into an opus thus allowing me to move on to something totally new.

Airbrushing is the new talent I am delving into and it seems really cool. I've spent my entire life rejecting this skill for more graphic, hard-lined, types of printing
like screen printing. I've been using spray paint and making stencils with laser cutting and wire mesh screens, however, I was reluctant to do too much since the spray paint stinks and gives me a headache eventhough I wear a mask. The idea of water-based inks not causing a toxic cloud while I worked attracted me slowly to the air brush equipment at the art store. Now I've got an assortment of inks for textiles and I think I'm going to accentuate various black lined screen print designs with air brushed highlights.

Screen printing is basically making a stencil, so the first thing I worked on was coating a wire mesh screen with emulsion. Needless to say it was a huge mess, but I managed to get a 4" X 5" rectangle photographic stencil of Obama. Ts encouraged me to go further and I restretched the screens and spend several days making the emulsion thicker.

Why T-shirts?

"Don't ask me why, don't say goodbye, don't make me blooooooooo. T-shirts, I love only you." Ok, t-shirts don't deserve to be made into sing-song language, but I often wonder why do I work on this sort of cheap cotton genre. I'm pretentious enough to be a real artist, but I keep coming back to this "two-word" format of 1-2 color 8 X 10" artwork theme. I can't say exactly why, but I think it has to do with the fact that people buy t-shirts and therefore it becomes a commodity item. I like art, but the worst thing I can imagine is that I would make something really great and the first person that sees it buys it and then it is stuck away somewhere waiting until I am dead for the rest of the world to clue in on what it means. There are too many ifs, ands and butts when it comes to the limited production artwork world and t-shirts cross all-lines from a distribution standpoint.

T-shirt Print Size and Printing Specifications

This is a 12" design, the width is approx 8", properly prepared artwork for a one-color print, black ink on white t-shirts. Preferably we would receive this design via email in a PSD, grey scale format at 1-300dpi at the size it is to be printed. Or an EPS, scalable artwork, at the size that it is to be printed. Email artwork to admin@yque.com or admin@t-shirts.org

This section is more of an instructional blog. Often I get inquiries for jobs that I move along through the printing cycle knowing that the only way to truly get a job approved is to get the sample into the hands of the customer. However, due to time constraints and shipping cost, I try using digital photo samples to get quick approvals (which often suffer color variations from lighting problems, but that is another post). The one area that always creates confusion is the size of the artwork. No matter how specific I am, this part of taking a t-shirt printing order is the most confusing, yet it is the simplest problem to solve with a little communication, a ruler and a simple draft print from an ink jet printer.

I always request from a customer that they indicate to me the size of a graphic when they email me the file, in inches, in one-direction, either the width or the height of the design. It's just that simple, but most people can't find a ruler, assume that what I see on my end is what they see on their end, or they are just lazy and figure I should "know" what size they want it by looking at the design. I recommend that the customer should print the artwork out from their end from an ink jet printer and hold it up to a shirt. Also that they should trim it along the edges and tape it on a shirt, then stand back a few feet and squint. Surprisingly the squinting really helps at eliminating the edges of the paper and this provides a pretty good sample of what a print will look like. Printing a color background around the design that is the same color as the shirt that is going to be used for the job is a good way to get a more accurate view of how the design will look on any particular shirt color. Then MEASURE THE DESIGN with a ruler and email the dimensions.

Otherwise, here's what happens, a printer often prints things to fill a page, then when the file is emailed to our art department it might open at 6 inches across instead of 10 inches across as the customer intended. Then we open the file, proceed to print a film, shoot a screen make a sample shirt, shoot a digital photo, email it to the customer, wait to hear back and the customer replies, "it's too small, can you make it bigger?" Still no mention of how big they want it though. This drives me crazy and the customer hates it too, because I usually reply, "How big do you want it, in inches?" They reply, "Just fill the front of the shirt". Oh my god. I've gotten this far without committing suicide, but this type of email thread pushes me closer to the edge than anything else. Why can't people just say how big they want a design in a measurement that I can use?

The print above is 12" high print approx 7.5" wide on a white Large Hanes T-shirt. Although it may look small on a shirt laid out flat, which is approximately 22" wide, it isn't that small on a person wearing it. Take a ruler and measure your chest and you'll see that unless you want to be a walking billboard, this size ain't so bad.

continuing...

Here's the kicker, I indicate that shooting a new screen will cost $30 per color and require a new proof and setup, which will delay the order. Obviously we have their attention now, "Why?", they ask, "I indicated how big I wanted the design in the layout image that I sent to you earlier, 25,0000 emails ago". This "image" of course was a pdf layout or a jpeg of a graphic that is not usable as artwork and although it may have been an indicator of the size, every t-shirt size if different and different brands are different, MOCK-UPS are not an indicator of artwork size. This is why we suggest that a customer send the actual measurements of the design IN WRITING, preferably in inches, not a graphic rendition of how the design will look on a shirt. Don't get me wrong, these mock-ups do help, but nothing replaces an actual measurement for how large a design should be.

Lastly, one computer system opens a file at one size and another computer may open that file at a different size. I don't know why, it's preferences, programs or just random acts by God to frustrate graphic artist and destroy our economy by wasting our time, like SPAM. If God so loved the world he would smite spammers off the planet, but I digress. It just happens. It happens even when I forward files to my own print shop. The only way to double check the size of a design is to indicate how big a file is, in inches. No matter how many times we were told in school that the Metric system was going to take over our world, in the US, that hasn't happened, our rulers still show inches and we think that way in our print shop.

By the way, do they still tell children that the metric system will rule the world someday? All things change, just like the food chart. Have they added candy to the food chart?

Maximum standard print area is 10" wide X 12" high.

For Women's and Youth shirts you may not want to go larger than 9" wide.

We can turn the frames horizontally and print 12" wide, but on smaller sizes the print will not work and may go under the sleeves.