13 T-Shirt Printing And Design Mistakes To Avoid

Starting your very own t-shirt apparel printing business, just like any business, is a difficult thing to do. Maintaining and developing this same business to further growth are also not easy. I would like to share my unique experience here with regards to mistakes to avoid when in this business. My own takeaway here is that you will learn from faster from these missteps and so that you can enjoy and grow this enterprise as I have done so.

What are the 13 t-shirt printing and design mistakes to avoid? These mistakes are going in this business unprepared, not having the right equipment and supplies, fostering bad relations with clients and suppliers, and being careless with your production which leads to having inferior outputs.

There are more to these oversights especially when your printing shop is up and running. I will go about discussing these issues in a sorted way from the beginning when you are thinking about starting this type of business up to the time you are already operating. And I intend to go over these mistakes in a more detailed way later in this blog post.

1) Not Having Time And Energy

Yeah, it’s very enjoyable doing when you have time. You especially like it when the design and quality coming out met a lot of positive approval from friends and family. And that is why they are encouraging you to make this a business and that they will support you.

Say goodbye to all of this and welcome to the major leagues. It will not be fun and games anymore from here.

Any business especially a startup demands a lot of your time. In the beginning, there will be a lot of it devoted to set up, research, and planning.

In setup, you will have to identify where you will be locating your printing shop. Once done, you will have to close the lease (assuming you will be renting), undertake renovations (if necessary), and apply for the necessary permits.

And while you are doing these tasks, you will have to research on the following:

Your target niche market and their expected demands and requirements,
Your competitors within the proximate area,
Your product offerings to serve your market,
Your supplies for your product offerings,
Your equipment and labor requirements (keep this simple at the start).

You need to have a plan as to how this business will grow for obviously you want it to. This may include a marketing plan where you will have a strategy on how to get clients. You also need a plan as to how to support this expected growth.

Once you have finalized your research and plans, then it is time to make that happen. Get on the phone and secure those materials and equipment with your suppliers. Hire that additional help. Go to your computer and start making adverts for your business.

Sounds huge, right? Not so much fun now as it was when all of this was a hobby, I bet.

But wait, it is just about to get harder.

This is where your energy comes in to take over.

By this time, you should really look at yourself hard in the mirror and ask if you have the energy to go through this. Things are hard enough already with the time requirement. The issue now is what are you willing to push through. Do you still simply have the drive to go ahead with this business?

I didn’t mean to scare you but in case that there is no answer somewhere in this section, then I would like to advise you not to push through with this business. Just keep it a hobby and you will thank me later.

2) Not Following The Plan

Congratulations for you have made it here this far it seems. This means that you have the time, and desire to go through this business.

Just follow through with the plan formed and agreed upon.

However, being cautious here even with a plan wouldn’t hurt.

You may consider having you yourself running that shop initially by yourself. Instead of coming up with fancy marketing materials and your own store, online marketing and at trade fairs would be a wiser decision.

Of course, this is just at the beginning. You can have that additional help enlisted and your very own store in a mall once you encounter the right situation to expand.

The good thing about doing being small in the beginning is that you can get experience in with all areas of the business. It will come in very handy later for you will be so knowledgeable about your business that nobody can outsmart you here, especially your own employees.

3) Making Wrong Equipment Choices

Starting here, I will share tips on how to avoid mistakes that will hamper your printing operations.

And we start with the equipment.

I strongly make a suggestion that you get brand new equipment.

This new equipment will not break down easily and if it does, there should be a warranty or extended service agreement to cover for this. You can now compete for any printing jobs that will be available out there or not turn down any jobs coming your way knowing full well that this spanking new equipment has your back covered.

Consider talking to industry experts as to what is the best brand of equipment to buy. Research extensively online and see all the available product reviews.

4) Getting No Training With Equipment

You got that new equipment but you did not bother to go through training with the service person who installed it. Big mistake.

This will bite you later for there is a more than excellent chance that you will use it incorrectly in the beginning, therefore, damaging it and perhaps even make you lose your warranty privilege. You will end up with a botched up job that will severely displease your customer and you lose all of their future business.

Kindly do yourself this favor and set enough time to learn to use this equipment properly at the beginning.

5) Having Substandard Materials And Supplies

Being frugal is being wise especially when you are just starting.

However, one thing you should never ever compromise is the quality of the fabric material to be used for your t-shirts. This will not be a good situation for you in the end.

You see, people generally like a good artwork printed on their t-shirts. But this will be all for naught if this particular shirt shrinks rapidly or has the design blurred after several uses. This can be pointed out right away to the type of material used.

You might even consider evaluating the inks that you will be using. This has a very important effect on your design. Read up on these inks prior to purchase so that you will have an idea as to what you are getting.

6) Bad Relationships With Vendors And Suppliers

I have touched base in the previous sections about how important it is to having quality equipment and supplies. This now extends to the companies who are supplying you with these things. I am talking about your suppliers and vendors.

You need to have a more than average relationship with them. You cannot afford to treat them like dirt for it will haunt you later on when you are in the midst of that big printing job.

Treat them nice and they will return the favor to you.

Case in point is when your DTG (Direct to Garment) printer broke down while you are trying to catch up with an order in the middle of the night. If you have good relations with the service provider, there is a good chance that this company will schedule a technician to come see you early in the morning next day or even send one right away.

7) Keeping Inventory And Reorder Point Low

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Congratulations. From this point, I shall be sharing advice on how to avoid mistakes with the key assumption that your business has successfully hurdled startup blues and is currently operating.

I shall start with inventory for this is a key factor to consider in having a smooth operation going. Anticipating demand is a good skill to have in growing a t-shirt printing business.

There is also a significant relation to this with the previous section on having good relationships with your suppliers.

A thoroughly beneficial relationship with your supplier will lead to having enough supply inventory on hand to meet the demands of your business. This supplier can work hand in hand with you in checking and ensuring you have enough supply.

You probably do not even need to make an order yourself to have supplies in hand. This supplier will make sure of that. It is to his interest to keep you in his fold so that he will be reassured of your business.

You can have the advantage of this relationship by insisting that in cases of emergencies, this supplier can address your immediate demand.

8) Rejecting Customer Orders Right Away

By this time, I should have discussed all issues regarding suppliers. I shall now talk about the most important relationship in your t-shirt printing business – your customers.

It is not uncommon for a client walking in my shop and demanding extraordinary things such as a difficult artwork to print with lots of colors and detail in the design. And the order quantity is only for ten t-shirts.

My immediate reaction is to reject this client right away but common sense prevails in the end.

I can always outsource the design work to a freelancer. And I take time in explaining this setup to the client. They generally have no issue with this.

Often, this client comes back to my shop with a bigger order. I believe that the initial one is done to test my resolve and capability in meeting his specifications.

9) Making An Overcommitment

There are printing shops out there, which in their desire to generate business, will promise the same customer everything.

These shops have a tendency to undercut their competitors in quality of work, order lead times, and job requirements. They will even discredit their rivals hoping that it will make them look better to clients.

In the end, they pay for this mistake through loss of sales and general customer dissatisfaction. Word of mouth can easily spread about this mistake that will serve to magnify things and be bad for them in the long run.

10) Having Inferior Designs

I cannot stress this hard enough. You simply have to invest in having superior and visually pleasing designs.

I have mentioned this earlier when I dealt with difficult client design demands. They key to this is having more than capable freelancers out there who can come up with these wonderful pieces of artwork. If you can have at least three of them at your call, it will be to your distinct advantage. That way, you know that there is always someone out there who can assist you at any time.

Treat these people like you treat your suppliers and vendors for they are vitally important to your business. Their designs will bring people to your shop and it is your job to make them stay.

11) Not Proofreading Your Designs

Nothing bothers people more than seeing their names or lucky numbers misspelled in their t-shirts. Not only is this careless but it is just plainly unacceptable and irresponsible.

Can you imagine yourself wearing a t-shirt with your name spelled incorrectly?

Take time to proofread your designs. You can even run a spell checker program just to make sure.

These types of mistakes are an embarrassment to a printing shop. It is also costly for you will have to repeat this order at your expense. No right customer with his own mind intact will pay for this out of their own wallets.

Other mistakes that you have to be constantly aware of are:

Using low-resolution images,
Not paying attention to color type requirements (underbases for light colored printing on dark t-shirts),
Not taking an effort to smoothen out edges in designs,
Failing to convert texts to curves, and
Failing to take advantage of vector file format for image manipulation purposes.

12) Not Taking Care Of Screen Mesh Issues

There are two important things when using screen mesh.

One, you need a variety of screen mesh available in your printing shop. By default, 110-mesh and 125-mesh are used regularly. However, this will not allow fine detail artworks to be seen from your shop. You will lose a lot of flexibility in the market due to this.

Have 160, 180, 220, 280 and 205 mesh count screens available to be ready for all types of requests.

Also, always check the tension in your mesh regularly. Constant use tends to make this loose. Use a tightening device to put this in its right tension.

13) Not Paying Attention To Curing Times

Always remember that water-based and plastisol inks have their own curing times and temperature requirements. More often than not, this lapse is the cause behinds those cracks showing in the design on t-shirts.

Having a good dryer will help address this issue.