[brightonbelle]

Hi all,
I am definately considering signing up for a spreadshirt shop, but am a bit confused as I can't seem to find an details for what size your designs should be for each piece of merchandise. Cafepress gives you templates for their stuff, do spreadshirt do the same? Am I missing something?
Hope someone can point me in the right direction. Thanks in advance!
Regards, Jane.

 

[Rodney]

Spreadshirt uses vector graphics for their dark apparel, so the design you submit will be able to easily scale smaller or larger without losing any quality.

I haven't seen any max print sizes on their site, but if you login to your account and start messing around with their spreadshirt t-shirt designer, you should be able to see the max sizes.

 

[brightonbelle]

Thanks Rodney,
Do I understand correctly, you can set up an account if you haven't got all of your designs ready? I thought I should have everything ready to upload before I opened a shop. I tried their spreadshirt designer, and that's when it told me my design would not fit.
Thanks again.
Regards, Jane.

 

[Rodney]

You can setup an account and have zero designs ready

It's free to setup an account, and you can just login, look around, see how it works.

Some products have smaller printing areas than other products, so if you upload a graphic that is too big for the product, sometimes it will give you that message (if it's not able to scale the image down).

edit: I found the page on their site with their graphics sizes:
http://www.spreadshirt.com/Product_Assortment.3.0.html

Just click on the product you're interested in and you'll see a page with the print area specifications.

 

[brightonbelle]

That's great Rodney,
Thank you for your help. That's just what I looked for and failed to find.
Regards, Jane.

 

[some_art_guy]

But concerning bitmaps I completely understand about the 120 dpi, now where I get a little confused is when they mention in the "Submit Your Design for Digital Printing" section that for the design size the maximum dimension cannot exceed 1500x1500 pixels; but on the products themselves they feature print area dimensions. Which one is the correct one to use?

 

[Rodney]

"Submit Your Design for Digital Printing" section that for the design size the maximum dimension cannot exceed 1500x1500 pixels; but on the products themselves they feature print area dimensions. Which one is the correct one to use?

If your design is 1500x1500 pixels, then they can resize your graphic down to fit the other print area dimensions.

They also use vinyl/flex/flock transfer printing to print their dark garments, which require vector files. Vector files can be stretched as big or as small as they need to without losing image quality (although the printing can only be *so* small with the vinyl transfers)

 

[Iced Out Apparel]

300 dpi is the best

 

[some_art_guy]

300 dpi is the best

Yeah I was leaning toward 300 dpi too. I feel much safer with that than 120 dpi.

Thanks for the info!

 

[some_art_guy]

If your design is 1500x1500 pixels, then they can resize your graphic down to fit the other print area dimensions.

They also use vinyl/flex/flock transfer printing to print their dark garments, which require vector files. Vector files can be stretched as big or as small as they need to without losing image quality (although the printing can only be *so* small with the vinyl transfers)

Now I feel better about the specs, thanks Rodney!

 

[mcmartii]

First time - long time fly on the wall...
i'm having issues getting my design 'accepted' by their standards.
I regularly get the msg upon design submission - and i quote:

Some elements in your design do not meet our size requirements. Please make sure that:
- all visible elements of your design are at least 1.5 mm (0.06 inches),
- space in between should not be smaller than 1 mm (0.04 inches),
- text must have a minimum size of 10 mm (0.4 inches),
- the complete design must not be larger than 30 x 30 cm (11.8 x 11.8 inches). We recommend a general size of 22.5 x 22.5 cm (8.86 x 8.86 inches).


so by using vectors - you can't really scale as small as you want... you can as long as it meets the criteria mentioned above.
for me this is torture - since i have a few small elements in my design that puts a hold on the entire thing. and i don't want to create a mamoth print on the shirt. less is more...
and modifying the design to fit the specs would compromise the concept.
Not sure if anyone else has the same issues - but it's very frustrating.
After reading their explanation - it makes sense, but doesn't help me...
They have sample pictures to show 'acceptable' vs 'not acceptable' for the various reasons - but to me, i see elements of their 'accepted' designs that i can't see fitting their criteria.
it's a bit of a pain - i'm going to have to start printing out the designs, measuring, adjusting... lather, rinse, repeat...
Using corel draw - great software. but haven't found how to measure dimensions.
well - still playing. but thought i'd finally jump in on this topic.

ian

 

[Chido01]

Hi y'all

I have a question about graphics on Spreadshirt. I uploaded a design in PNG with a transparent background, but once it was uploaded to the store the design appeared on the shirt with a rectangular white background, anyone know what I did wrong? Oh, the t-shirt was dark (red).

Any help would be appreciated

 

[Rodney]

It's because PNG files are printed with digital printing (heat transfers) and not flock or flex vinyl like the vector files.

So, they can't print a dark shirt with a regular heat transfer the same way they would print using a vector file. I think there might be a way to design the PNG for the garment color and they'll work around it.

You might need to check in their forums for more info, I think I remember reading the solution there.

 

[Chido01]

Cool, Rodney

I tried accessing the forums with the username and password I made to start my shop there but it says I need to have permission to enter, but doesn't say how...

Anyway, I make my designs using vectors (Flash), so maybe I'll just upload them that way, even if it takes longer for the designs to be approved.

Thanks a bunch anyway!

 

[Rodney]

I tried accessing the forums with the username and password I made to start my shop there but it says I need to have permission to enter, but doesn't say how.

That's weird, it worked fine for me yesterday. If you really want to access the forums (there's good info there), you should drop them a line and let them know you're having login problems.

 

[Chido01]

I guess I will; the funny thing is that I was already signed in to my shopkeeper account when I tried visiting the forums...

 

[linny]

after you log in to the shop admin i have the forum listed under new items which you might have scroll down a bit but you should be able to find the forum.

it should be the same username & password that you used to sign up.

also you can change the username & password by going to the shop admin page then clicking the accounts page then click on password & login. now this will also change the username & password that you normally use to log in to the shop admin if you still need help then email them at [email protected]

hope this helps

 

[jmer]

The following is from a response email I got from Spreadshirt regarding trouble accessing the forum.

"We are still having intermittent issues with some partners and logging in. Many partners are not experiencing this issue. Our IT team is in the process of purchasing a new forum, transferring all the old posts, and replacing the existing forum with the new one. The process does take some time, considering all the posts and information already on the forum. We do hope to have the forum available soon. The login issue is intermittent and does not effect all partners, instead of taking the forum off line altogether, so no one can access it, we have decided to allow those who can access the forum continued access and ask those who are experiencing the issue to please bear with us as we try to resolve the current login issue, which also trying to prepare the new forum."