I've been experimenting with SpreadShirt for a few weeks now. I've now ordered four different designs from them.
Before I get into too much detail I would like to state clearly that SpreadShirt is a wonderful company. They take customer service to the next level. I have yet to speak to anyone from Spreadshirt that has made me feel insignificant, stupid, or annoyed. Always very curteous and kind.
The return policy is another thing I would like to highlight. You really must have a strong return policy especially in the Print on Demand industry where there is no type of proofing. Never have they asked any suspicious questions asked when I wanted to return my shirts. I could tell they just wanted to know why so they could make the overall experience better next time and try to prevent the same problems from happening with others.
I should also chime in that they print very quicky, too.
However, all that being said; I just don't think Direct to Garment (on darker apparel especially) printing is for me. On all of my orders I have not been happy with the print quality and understand that it is a limitation of the technology. I just can't see selling this sort of thing to my customer.
I dislike how the ink refracts light and makes it very difficult to view any details of a print. I've realized that this is due to the white underprint.
I've also noted the following:
- Prints are sometimes crooked throughout the shirt. I understand that it is difficult to load a Shirt onto a platen and have the registration be perfect.
- Places where there is a lot of ink that is layed down or a solid fill are not so solid. For example where there should be a solid black fill you can identify little white flecks. I am guessing this is a limitation of the inkjet aspect of the printing. It seems to be unable to evenly lay ink in a way that it absorbs correctly into the fibers. This is really noticeable in a solid fill.
- Placement on your shirt's avatar does not always accurately depict the placement of your print, or its size. I think this is due to the fact that when you select a size on the Shirt designer the Avatar does not change to reflect the size difference! Your shirts avatar changes when you select color and style, but not size. This is an error in my opinion. Bigger shirt sizes should equal more imprintable area, or the avatar should show you that you will be receiving a design of the same size on a bigger shirt, thus making your design 'look' smaller.
I'd also like to see spreadshirt release design templates and information about what RIP software and colormatching profiles they use to output. I've asked this a few times and still have not receieved an answer (Though I think the Q/I department is still out for the year.)
I would also find it helpful to know the pantone colors of the shirts that are available for imprint. Knowing that a shirt is "Slate" doesn't really help me because that could be any gray. Not only that but everyone's monitors are color calibrated differently...so the "Slate" I got was not the "Slate" as I thought ;D
I will keep an eye on spreadshirt and I thank Jana for creating such an awesome company. I definitely would love to work with them again, I just don't think the time is right for me.
The reason I wrote this is not to scare people away from SpreadShirt, please try them out for yourself. I just wanted to let people know about these things so it does not come as a shock to you, or to help you choose your printing options.
(Attn Mod: Could I change the Thread name to "Spreadshirt is great,just..it is not for me" instead of what it is now? Thanks.)
Spreadshirt is great, just...not for me. 
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