I'm working on a write-up for the ironall type inkjet transfers, but in the meantime...
This weekend I went to a
John Legend and Corinne Bailey Rae concert in Berkeley, California.
It was a birthday present from my wife and we had pretty darn good seats
Some people buy postcards, magnets or shotglasses as keepsakes from the places they go, I like to buy t-shirts as "souvenirs"
Some interesting things I noted about the t-shirts for sale:
- The didn't have many styles available in XXL (might have been the demographic)
- The prices were pretty high and they were selling LOTS.
- The designs weren't "generic". Looks like they had t-shirt artists put some thought into them.
- They had a neat marketing technique: the first 40 people to spend over $40 would win a free pass to meet John Legend after the show. Most of the shirts were just under $40, so it was clearly meant to encourage multiple item purchases.
I ended up buying an XL sized zip up hoody that said "Legend" across the front since it had a nice double meaning.
What's the first thing you notice about this hoodie:
Well, the first thing I noticed when I picked it up was how soft it was. So instinctively, I went straight for the label and found out that it was an
APX4000Z hoodie from Independent Trading Company (I'd link directly to the garment page, but unfortunately, they decided to use flash for their new website, so it's lacking in functionality).
Then I held it up close to try to figure out how they did the printing over the seam/zipper:
Well, it turns out they must have used a heat press to apply the graphic.
In the first picture, you can see a slight discoloration outline where heat press was clamped down (click on the image to zoom in). To be honest, I was a bit put off by it, and when I went back to see if they had any that didn't have the press marks on it, I found out that they ALL had the same marks on it.
The vendor guy said that it would wash out after the first wash, which I knew to be true since the same thing happened with
my first custom t-shirt I heat pressed. But still, I didn't expect to see it on a retail ready product.
Either way, I'm 99% sure that most of the shirts at the concert (with $25-$55 pricetags) were done with a heat press and plastisol transfers.
The design above shows one way to get a screen printed design to go over the seams or zipper in a hoodie. With a heat press, the ink doesn't have to be "pushed" over the zipper, it can be pressed down on top of the zipper, which eliminates the motion that causes the most problems when printed over bumps with direct screen printing.