Designing & and printing T-shirts

Anybody here know how it's done on a commercial level, Do you need computer software? Are there any quality places in South Wales?
And to any existing T shirt vendors, don't worry i won't be making city merchandise. It's more opf an arty market i'll be going for.

Yes

Cheers Mario, I won't forget your invaluable leg-up at my launch party

My brother in law, and a friend of mine, are the co founders of Weekend Offender.

My brother in law is graphic designer by trade, and my friend was a clothing agent, and had his own clothes shop.

They started tinkering around doing designs just for t-shirts to sell in my mates shop, it was called Done & Dusted originally. They used fruit of the loom T's and used a t-shirt place in Treorchy or somehwere in the Rhondda and end up with more rejects, due to ink thumbprints on the T's than T-shirts they were abale to sell.

They then got an investor on board, who had experience in manufacturing clothing, has factories in Portugal, Vietnam.etc and the rest is history. Now stocking throughout the UK and have their own signature store in Soho, London.

I was up London for a few days last week and looking at their latest collections they have come a long, long way since originally using the t-shirt press in Treorchy.

My brother in law, and a friend of mine, are the co founders of Weekend Offender.

My brother in law is graphic designer by trade, and my friend was a clothing agent, and had his own clothes shop.

They started tinkering around doing designs just for t-shirts to sell in my mates shop, it was called Done & Dusted originally. They used fruit of the loom T's and used a t-shirt place in Treorchy or somehwere in the Rhondda and end up with more rejects, due to ink thumbprints on the T's than T-shirts they were abale to sell.

They then got an investor on board, who had experience in manufacturing clothing, has factories in Portugal, Vietnam.etc and the rest is history. Now stocking throughout the UK and have their own signature store in Soho, London.

I was up London for a few days last week and looking at their latest collections they have come a long, long way since originally using the t-shirt press in Treorchy.

Just checked their site, doing well for themselves Their footwear isn't bad either.
I need to know how the process works, what computer programme is required. One for yahoo questions i think, as nobody wants to share their secrets

It's a great way to make some extra cash, but if you want to do it properly, it's very expensive to start out.

There are cheaper third party ways to do it through sites like Redbubble and the one Karl used to sell his retro shirts, but the profit margins are low and you lack control over the quality of the products that are being produced.

Third party vendors tend to use cheap clothing and fast printing techniques that are prone to fading quite quickly or looking washed out when printed onto colour fabrics.

For those reasons it's obviously not a viable option if you plan on building a brand.

If you have any questions, just give me a shout or drop me an email at info@cardiffdesignstudio.com

Just like the guy who started Weekend Offender, my trade is a Graphic Designer and I've been popping my designs onto clothing for the last 4 years for a bit of extra cash.

Weekend Offender is a brilliant brand and their clothes are now excellent. A few years back they were pretty poor quality but these days you will not find better quality and value than their stuff.

I'd love to end up with a brand like Weekend Offender but it takes so much time, money and skill to put grow a brand like that.

Massive respect to the founders.

mate of does all sorts of printing and signs

http://www.asign4u.info/index.html

I'm very good mates with the lads who ran cardifferent. They were very successful but despanded to focus on other things. I actually think they are now looking to sell the company but if there is any advice you need give me a shout and I will ask them for any info needed.

Cheers for the replies.

My brother in law, and a friend of mine, are the co founders of Weekend Offender.

My brother in law is graphic designer by trade, and my friend was a clothing agent, and had his own clothes shop.

They started tinkering around doing designs just for t-shirts to sell in my mates shop, it was called Done & Dusted originally. They used fruit of the loom T's and used a t-shirt place in Treorchy or somehwere in the Rhondda and end up with more rejects, due to ink thumbprints on the T's than T-shirts they were abale to sell.

They then got an investor on board, who had experience in manufacturing clothing, has factories in Portugal, Vietnam.etc and the rest is history. Now stocking throughout the UK and have their own signature store in Soho, London.

I was up London for a few days last week and looking at their latest collections they have come a long, long way since originally using the t-shirt press in Treorchy.

Just checked their site, doing well for themselves Their footwear isn't bad either.
I need to know how the process works, what computer programme is required. One for yahoo questions i think, as nobody wants to share their secrets

There are a few ways of printing T-shirts there is direct to garment printing , Vinyl printing and silk screen printing.

Depending on the the process you want to use dictates what software and equipment you need.

Direct to garment is where you basically load the T-shirt into a printer and it prints your design - effective but expensive and not that fast for production use.

Vinyl printing is cutting shapes from vinyl and heat pressing them onto the garnment these can be single colour i.e you buy red vinyl and print a red design or you use printable vinyl and print what you want on it.

Silk screen is the best for mass production due to speed , there are a load of videos on youtube of silk screen printing which show the process far better than I can explain it.

I used to work for a design print and embroidery company in Pontypridd so know a bit about this if you have any questions just ask