100 T Shirts - Special Pricing

Manx Media is offering deals on 100 T Shirts in January 2009. You can order 100 white Gildan cotton Ts with a one color print for $395.00, including everything but shipping.

Black or color Ts are $495.00. Check the Manx Media web site for details.

Holiday Sale 2008

Manx Media is offering deep discounts on orders placed by November 1, 2008.

Sale pricing applies on wholesale T-Shirt and Sweatshirt orders over 60 pieces on the Gildan and American Apparel brands.

Contact Manx Media via email with the specs of your job for a quote.

Start Your Own T-Shirt Shop

Times are tough! Between the housing bust and the BushCheney profligate war spending, the economy is in the dumps. Whether you are a freshly minted grad needing a job, or a newly downsized technocrat, there has never been a better time to start a Custom Screen Printing T-Shirt shop.
No, I have not flipped my lid, in fact this is exactly what I did in the downturn of 1980 as I graduated college. I've posted a somewhat lengthy piece on How To Start A T Shirt Business at my Self Employment For Bohemians blog, check it out.

Steve Lafler, owner
Manx Media

Organic Cotton Tee

Since last year, American Apparel has added a mess of cool new colors in their organic cotton T. It comes in both men's and women's Jersey style with the same slinky cut and soft feel that makes American Apparel the #1 choice for a fashion T.
The organic cotton T's are a buck & change more per shirt than the regular cotton T from American Apparel.

Another Thrilling TShirt Season is Here!

I always get pumped as Spring rolls around, because I know it's time to dust off the platens and print piles and piles of TShirts with this seasons brilliant new designs form the minds and computers of my ingenious clients.

The top sellers from 2007 are back with an insane selection of colors to chose from. The Gildan Ultra Cotton #2000 is the hands down winner in the classic 6.1 ounce cotton T Shirt catagory. It's a superb quality T that comes in dozens of colors. Although Gildan has inched the price up a hair on it's flagship T Shirt for 2008, it's still the top value for the classic T.

Of course, the shirt of choice for the fashion forward remains the American Apparel #2001 Fine Jersey Short Sleeve T. The Evil Geniuses at American Apparel also offer dozens of color choices in their basic T, to compliment it's famous fit & appealing feel.

The top women's seller of 2007 was the American Apparel #4321 Baby Rib Cap Sleeve T, edging out the #2102 Women's Fine Jersey T.

As you may have heard, American Apparel has taken some well deserved heat for it's sexy ads featuring young women. I have to agree with the critics, I think that the ads go a bit over the edge. The #2001 pictured above is within the range of an acceptable product photo, in any case.
It is worth noting that American Apparel makes an effort to pay a living wage to it's workers, and reputedly offers help with education.

Go ahead and click on the links above to check out the catalog pages for these popular styles.
You can also click on the main Manx Media catalog page to shop for a huge variety of shirt styles and other imprintable items.

Steve Lafler, Manx Media

Short Run Full Color Update

Who do you call (or email) when you want to put an image like Mr. Cactus here jammin' on his guitar on a T Shirt?

Today I will sing the praises of Cafe Press, the site where you can go to print your art or logo on just about anything, in a jiffy. Simply upload your art, choose a shirt (or mug, etc.) to print on, and it's GO Time.

I do not want to refer business to my competition, but I'm not in the same business as Cafe Press.

Screen printing is an elegant, simple process that produces beautiful results - but the fact is, the economies of scale start at around 60 pieces minimum. For full color, it doesn't make economic sense to go to screen printing for less than 100 pieces, in order to offset the cost of films & screens.

Thus, the answer for short run, full color printing is to go digital. I've remarked before on the recent improvements in digital imaging with regard to it's image quality and durability. While it's true that many Mom & Pop, local operations are setting up for digital printing, there are a couple things to consider.

Anyone can print out an image (backwards) from an ink jet printer onto t-shirt release paper and iron it (or heat press) it onto a T Shirt, and there is nothing wrong with that. But for the best quality and durability, you may want to consider direct to garment digital printing. At present, the cost of the machinery is still prohibitive. So I would carefully check quality before ordering digital prints from a local entrepreneur.

At present, I recommend Cafe Press because they get it right, with regard to quality and service. Quality and service are the drivers of my screen print operation, and I have a hearty respect for any business that takes these values to heart.

As mentioned, I'm not in competition with Cafe Press, in fact I'm a client of Cafe Press, for the sake of full disclosure. Yup, I am using their service for some of my own full color images, at this link:
http://www.cafepress.com/stevelafler
So if you like Mr. Cactus on the guitar, you know where you can find him on a shirt!

Steve Lafler

Return to Manx Media homepage.

Adventures in Full Color T Shirts

Here at Manx Media, we have had a season of strong demand for full color printing on both light and dark T Shirts, mostly on slinky women's styles from Bella and American Apparel.

We printed the Spring / Summer line for Eden Dawn Apparel of Portland. The line featured 14 items, including six full color designs. It was both a technical and production challenge to pump these clever designs out, but by all accounts the shirts looked great. This is a young designer with a lot of style and a great future, so be sure to visit her site.

Next up was a new color design from beloved kick-ass comedian, Margaret Cho. Margaret is now doing a show called "The Sensuous Woman", and the shirts feature a faux-forties style pin-up illustration of the notorious Cho in full lingerie. Wow! Who knew? This is one of the best shirts we've ever done, it just looks superb (thanks to the great illustration of Margaret by Olivia).

Okay! What have we at Manx Media learned about printing full color on Tees? Simple! With our level of technology, the best results come from enhanced process color printing, usually using an underbase white and either a "popper" spot color, or a high light white. Before this rash of challenging jobs, I usually would go with "simulated process" or index color for full color on a dark shirt; I've had good results with these techniques before. But to tell the truth, I've gained experience and confidence with process printing that makes me ready to tackle more full color images.

One caveat to full process color printing--with the cost of setting up six films and screens for a job, best to consider a minimum of 100 shirts to defray the cost of set up. There are always transfers for short color runs...

Kudos go to David Perkin, my stalwart press operator who couldn't print a bad shirt if you paid him. You're the man, David!

Steve Lafler

Tour Merch

Manx Media Custom Screen Printing has years of experience supplying touring acts with merchandise. We have provided the whole range of screen printed and embroidered items from work shirts, panties, zipper hoodies and nylon jackets all the way to the ubiquitous t-shirt (in both men's and women's styles) to some demanding acts with ingenious designs. You'd be amazed at some of the unusual print jobs we've produced for our touring clientele--we're always up for a challenge!

White some acts prefer to purchase goods for the whole tour up front and load up the van, others prefer to travel light and have us drop ship the goods to them as they travel from venue to venue. In a pinch, we have shipped overnight or 2nd day when a hot item sells out (we ship via DHL, who are not only efficient, but by far the best deal in the shipping industry). Our priority is to keep our touring clients supplied with the merch they need to make the tour a profitable venture.

Some of the acts we have worked with over the past decade:

Peaches
The Residents
Margaret Cho
Angry Samoans
Themselves
Anticon
Chix on Speed

Send me an email at steve.lafler@gmail.com with any questions you have about touring merch. Let's look at all the garment decorating and design options to come up with the right mix of touring merchandise for your act.

Steve Lafler

Return to Manx Media homepage.

Full Color T-Shirt Decorating

Manx Media is able to offer our customers two great options for decorating T Shirts with full color graphics.

Screen Printing
Traditional screen printing continues to be the best way to produce full color images on T Shirts when you need a large quantity of shirts. Our minimum order for full color (4-6 colors in your design) screen printed shirts is 72 pieces.
In terms of the brillance of color and the durability of the print, there is no technology better than screen printing to decorate garments.
Depending on the nature of your design, we can use spot color, index color, simulated process color, or index color to recreate your graphic on a shirt. We use a Photoshop plug-in program created just for the apparel decorator to generate the best possible version of your graphics for T Shirts.
As it is necessary to produce a film positive and screen for each color in your design, the economies of scale kick in nicely at the six dozen quantity.

Digital Imaging
The revolutionary good news in the shirt biz is that transfers are back. These are not your dad's transfers--the cheesy muscle car design that washed off before you could even break it in. With improvements in ink and transfer technology, todays digital transfers look vibrant and are washfast.
For full color apparel decorating on quantities less than six dozen, transfers are a great option. Working from your digital image, we create transfers that are heat pressed onto shirts. You get a great full color shirt that is easy on the budget.
At present, this technology works best on white or light colored garments.
If your design requires one, two or three colors, screen printing is still the way to go even with smaller quantities.

Questions? Send Steve an email at steve.lafler@gmail.com with your apparel decorating question.

Click here to return to Manx Media.

Screen Printing on Women's Fashions

The screen printed T Shirt industry has gone through a revolution in the past several years. Many brands have introduced T-Shirts that look good on women, in itself a somewhat revolutionary idea! Their offerings are not limited to just one style either; their fitted, young look has expanded to dozens of styles for men, women, children, babies and rvrn dogs!

Here at Manx Media we are able to offer a full range of stylish Tees; click here for a link to our online catalog of women's fashions.

Steve Lafler, proprietor