But, before we take a look at the test lab’s results, here is some information about our experiment:

• We chose flex to represent all plot printing techniques. Nothing against flock, writable flex or special flex, but plot printing’s durability is consistent across the board. We could definitely do a test of just plot printing techniques if you are interested.
• We take our science seriously and as in all controlled experiments one should keep the variables to a minimum. Therefore we used one design for all three printing techniques. Of course, this one-coloured design does not highlight the colourful advantages of digital printing, but here we really wanted to look closely at durability.
• We should also mention that Digital Transfer normally has a slim white border around the design. This border is not visible here as it was possible here to cut the foil close enough to the design, thus eliminating the border.

For an even more detailed overview of our printing techniques, check out this great FAQ article. What hopefully comes across here is the difference between plot, Digital Direct and Digital Transfer, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each technique:

• Digital Direct is optimal for a “vintage look”: dark designs on light textiles appear rich and wash out over time creating a used look. Vibrant and resilient colours are to be less expected on dark coloured textiles. I personally like designs on lighter shirts the best. A big advantage of Digital Direct: the surface of the textile barely changes and makes it comfortable to wear (without ironing!). Durability is okay and the colours fade after the first couple washes, but then remain at the same level.
• Digital Transfer has (as we mentioned above) a small border of up to 2mm around the design. The textile feels somewhat “stiffer” and the foil crinkles (scarcely audible).  Dark designs on dark textiles (only offered in some markets) may cause the foil to shine a bit. The colours are slightly more vibrant and more durable in washing compared to Digital Direct.
• Plot printing is the most durable, but at the same time the thickest print we offer. Designs appear very vibrantly and have the highest colour resilience on the shirt. However, there is one important requirement: the design must be submitted as a vector graphic. This allows it to fit on almost any textile and at any size (to a certain extent).

So, with all of that said – I invite you to make your own observations:

Again, if you are looking for even more detailed information and more close-up images of prints for the different printing techniques (including flock and special flex!), then I really recommend checking out this great FAQ article.

Those who subscribe to the newsletter are already in the know – but it’s time to really let the cat products out of the bag. Just in time for the wave of summer heat, these new items are casual, let the air flow and show just that little bit more skin. In addition to our new Exclusive Line products, we have added two tops and a skirt for the ladies and a Henley shirt for the gents.

• v-neck on the front and back - Women’s Double V-neck Shirt
• Eye-friendly U-cut - Women’s Scoop Neck T-shirt
• A new sense of asymmetrical balance - Women’s Drape Hem Skirt
• Nonchalant and casual - Men’s AA Henley T-Shirt

Shirts have also made their way into the Spreadshirt Marketplace and we would like to support this movement and the spreading of opinions on shirts with a special discount. From now until July 6, we will donate £2 to Amnesty International for every order at Spreadshirt which contains at least one green product. Here’s how it works:

• Have at least one green product in your basket
• Enter the voucher code IRANSHIRT when going through checkout

We give away this nice Timbuk2 Blogger Bag which is part of our new Exclusive Line. Since we made some fotos with it, I wouldn’t say it’s really brand new - but as you probably can spot from the foto our model treated it well. The nice thing is: we have already preprinted a beautiful design on it. If you’d buy it in our T-Shirt Designer, it costs GBP 70.51. Also make sure to watch the interviews Jana (our CEO) did with Kevin McSpadden (CMO of Timbuk2).

What’s the deal to win it? Fairly simple: All you have to do is blog. Anything. Whether it’s about the Election in Iran. Or the Berlin Wall and Internet Censorship. About the new iPhone. Or about the T-Shirt Day. Fairly anything that comes to mind, shows the power of the blogs, and tells us you simply need this Blogger bag.

Participation ends next Wednesday (June 24th, 2009, 11:59 PM) - please leave a trackback to this blogpost so we can see you’re joining in. The winner will be revealed on Friday (June 26th).

Spreadshirt’s world in numbers:

- The average number of people who handle a Spreadshirt product before it lands in the customer’s mailbox: 16

- The average number of hours it took a Spreadshirt product from the time of order to shipment in 2008 (including weekends and holidays): 36

- Number of t-shirts Spreadshirt shipped worldwide in 2008: 1,302,383

- Longest distance in kilometers that a Spreadshirt covered from the production centre in Leipzig to the customer’s mailbox (in Kanagawa, Japan): 9,082.4

For those with money on their mind:

- Average monthly earnings in euros of the five most successful private Spreadshirt Shop Partners in 2008: 4,894.20

- Percentage of Spreadshirt partners who gave “earn money” as the main reason for creating a Spreadshirt shop: 25.4

- Percentage of Spreadshirt partners who made sales in 2008, but didn’t set a commission on their products: 41.5

- Average monthly earnings in euros of the five most successful Spreadshirt Marketplace designers in 2008: 5,870.05

- Average commission in euros set by Marketplace designers per design sold in 2008: 0.73

Size matters, with shirts that is:

- Percent of German men who claim to wear the size “XL or larger“ in 2008: 3.4

- Percent of German men who ordered shirts at Spreadshirt in the size XL or larger: 33.6

- Percentage of complaints at Spreadshirt which were related to product size: 9.9

An insight into our apparel:

- Percentage of Spreadshirt sales which were short-sleeved products in the coldest month of 2008 (December): 83.6

- Percentage of Spreadshirt sales which were short-sleeved products in the hottest month of 2008 (July): 93.4

- Percentage of short sleeve products in Spreadshirt’s entire apparel assortment: 53.2

- Percentage of products made with organically grown cotton worldwide: 0.6

- Percentage of t-shirts made with organically grown cotton which were sold at Spreadshirt in 2008: 2.6

- Percentage of Spreadshirt’s apparel assortment which are products made with organically grown cotton: 11.1

If you are interested in the sources of the statistics above, just comment below and we can provide them for you. Did we leave any question unanswered?

The relatively-new-to-Spreadshirt.com partner Glarkware is no newbie to the t-shirt universe. His almost daily re-introduction of designs and addition of new gems are almost sure to induce a spout of laughter or brow-raising. As the slogan “Storied Shirt Jobbery” forewarns, each of Glarkware’s shirts is coupled with witty, ironic, informative and entertaining stories. Dave, the man behind Glarkware and the numerous other Glark Industries pursuits, talks about his move to Spreadshirt, gives us a quick lesson on Canadian pronunciation and graces us with his good-humoured nature. The interview with Dave from Glarkware:

Where are you from and where do you live now?
My hometown is a little place called Thorold which is near Niagara Falls but I’ve lived in Toronto, Los Angeles and I’m currently calling New York City home.

What do you do, other than t-shirts?
I’ve gone through a few careers since the 90s. I ran my own interactive agency (as we used to call them back then) doing website design and online marketing and work there led to a few vanity projects which took on a life of their own. The biggest of these was a TV recap site called Television Without Pity which we ran for almost 10 years before selling it to NBC. I’ve recently taken up photography which has been really fun.

How did you come up with the name Glark?
A friend of mine from university used to do a comic called Blik which was full of weird made up names and sounds. When it came time to choose a handle (more 90s talk!) for my online a-doings I aped his style and came up with something in that vein that didn’t appear on any search engines (though it has since become a name of a unix script… stupid eggheads!)

How long have you been designing t-shirts?
Wow, I guess about 10 years now. I started designing stuff for a friend’s wholesale apparel business back during the fake retro businesses shirt craze (remember that?) and had some stuff appear in stores like Urban Outfitters.

What is the difference between American and Canadian t-shirt culture?
Well, in Canada we called them shiurts. Other than that it’s about the same except Americans don’t understand all our references to Timbits and giggle way too much when we tell them how to correctly pronounce Regina.

When and why did you move to Spreadshirt?
In May 2009. Back in Toronto we would pick up stock from the local printer, we turned the 3rd floor of our house into a warehouse for shirts and we went to the post office every day after packing orders in the morning. Now we’re in New York City and living in an apartment the size of a postage stamp so that way of doing business would have cramped our style a bit. Now with Spreadshirt handling production and fulfillment it has really given me more time to design new stuff and start new projects.

What do you like about Spreadshirt and what could we do better?
I like not having to worry about. We are a small outfit by design and sometimes there were not enough hours in the day to keep up. Passing on responsibilities to a trusted partner to free up time to concentrate on design and marketing has been a godsend. I would like to see more shirt colour choices and colour parity between men’s and women’s shirts of the same make (e.g. American Apparel).

Where do you get your ideas for designing? What happens before a shirt lands on your site?
Almost everything just happens organically. I’ll be watching TV with my wife and some snarky comment becomes the start of a conversation that leads to a shirt design. There’s a shirt on the site called “Swedish Mafia: Efficient But Deadly” that was born when a friend from Chicago couldn’t figure out how his local Swedish bakery was getting rid of so many horrible baked goods every day. We knew the answer. It’s was obviously a mob front.

What’s your favourite shirt?
Oh man. I’m not going to do that thing where I say I can’t choose just one. I hate that. I’m going with Bigfoot vs. Abe Lincoln because I’m a big fan of both Abraham Lincoln and the ridiculous.

Have you ever seen a stranger wearing one of your shirts? What did you do?
Since I’ve moved to NYC I see them all the time. This is Glarkware Central! I will stop you and give you a long awkward hug and without explaining myself I gently whisper in your ear “thank you my friend” and walk away.

Where are your favourite stomping grounds on the world wide web?
I’m always on Flickr.com looking for inspiration for my photography. Following up on the Bigfoot vs. Abe Lincoln shirt, there’s a couple webcomics I really enjoy these days. The Abominable Charles Christopher is absolutely amazing and Thinkin’ Lincoln is right up my alley. I also run a site called Damn Hell Ass Kings that collects stuff from all our talented friends.

Following your slogan “Storied Shirt Jobbery”, each of your shirts has a story behind it. Why?
All our shirts really do have a story behind them. They all started life as some toss-away remark or weird idea and we try to capture something of that in the copy.

Do you really love irony?
That’s a typo. We love ironing.

Glarkware is bringing out new shirts every day, what do you have up your sleeve in the coming months for Glarkware?
Right now we’re reintroducing a lot of classic Glarkware designs including many redesigns. Once we’re done with that we’ve got some great new stuff ready to roll out and as fall approaches we’ll break out the hoodies.

If you were a t-shirt, what would you look like?
Medium. White.

Many thanks to Dave for the interview and …

As many of you know we called out to the t-shirt world to organise their own t-shirt celebrations and register on the T-Shirt Day website. We promised to equip 10 of these parties with sets of 10 t-shirts – and we shall follow through with that promise. The winners hail from 6 different countries and, depending on where you might find yourself on June 21st, you could join in on one of these events or one of the many others registered on the T-Shirt Day site. Here they are, in no particular order:

- Tee and Toast in Belfast on the Black Market
Belfast is joining in on the T-Shirt Day celebration and Tee and Toast invites you all to come to their Black Market stall where you can celebrate tees, creativity and the DIY spirit.

- T-shirt Mania in Cleveland
Yes Clothing is putting together a cook out for their T-Shirt Day celebration and anyone who isn’t wearing a plain t-shirt is invited.

- Party at Shakes ‘n Shirts in Hamburg
Shakes ‘n Shirts is a new store in Hamburg which infuses a novel mix of shakes, smoothies and t-shirts under one roof.

- Hit the park in Oslo’s Sofienbergparken
This Crazy T-Shirt Day party is taking to the park (weather permitting) and a “good-spirited” water balloon fight has been promised (regardless of the weather!). The t-shirt capital of the world is sure to put on a good t-shirt party.

- T-Shirt Day in Westerland on the Island Sylt
T-Shirt Day will celebrated on the North Sea Island Sylt with a friendly game of beach volleyball – and the best team jerseys will “probably” get a special prize. We certainly hope so! The basic ingredients for the best outfit are on their way.

- T-Shirt Day at N 50° 37.562′ E 013° 10.742′
You will have to find out yourselves where exactly this t-shirt party is taking place. Simply grab your handy GPS device and meet up with these other geocachers. Be certain not to forget your favourite t-shirt.

- In Baden Baden
In Hauenberstein near Baden Baden, in the shadow of the Black Forest, the 3 best voted shirts will be awarded a prize!

- T-Shirt Summit in Italy’s South Tyrol
Katelein invites any and all fellow t-shirt-wearing hikers to join in on a real t-shirt summit. They will take to the Italian Alps in search of other hikers and their t-shirts.

- Party in Southern France with music and Best Hits
June 21st is the “Fete de la Musique” in France and it would make quite a bit of sense to put T-Shirt Day in the groove with some fine tunes. The web-radio Best Hits and the party can be found in La Turbie and on the net at best-hits-radio.skyrock.com.

We certainly hope the other parties in India, Legoland Berlin and elsewhere have a great time too! Where will you be on June 21st?

Once again, I must tip my hat to our community. A twitter message fluttered into our account over the weekend

SOAP shop software for the rest of the world http://spreadshop.cute-monstr.de

Second nature and curiosity about what Bejamin Vetter had in store preceded the click and the result was very satisfying. Benjamin claims to have been able to really make your Spreadshirt shop all yours – the template:

• does not need iFrames
• is completely customisable for your website
• is based on the programming language Ruby
• can be expanded upon and
• is offered for free under the GNU General Public License.

We think this is fantastic and are planning to ask Benjamin a few questions about his work. So if you have any questions you would like to ask him, post them here by 5 p.m. on Wednesday.

Some of you might then be wondering about our new API and this year’s eventual switch from SOAP to REST. I don’t have any updates for you, but can definitely recommend signing up for the newsletter at developer.spreadshirt.net. But don’t let that keep you from trying out this new software - Benjamin has already mentioned that an update would be provided when this change occurs.

So for those who would like to give the software a try, go to spreadshop.cute-monster.de and download the source package. Enjoy and props to Benjamin!

P.S. Please be fair and acknowledge Benjamin if you end up using the template for your shop.

Celebrate T-Shirt Day in your own way by hosting an event and register the festivities on the website so others can perhaps join in.

Events have already been registered in the U.S., Norway, India, and Germany and we’re hoping that you’ll join in on the worldwide party.

P.S.  We will be raffling off 10 sets of 10 free t-shirts to 10 different participants who host their own T-Shirt Day event. To qualify, all you have to do is have a Spreadshirt shop and register your party the T-Shirt Day site by June 14th. We will select the winners on June 15th, notify them by e-mail and announce the winning events here in the Spreadshirt blog.

Science
Best described in Jeremy’s own words: “off kilter science t-shirts with a faux sarcastic nerd loving absurdist bent”. You’ve got to love scientists hugging heart-spewing nuclear plants and wrangling wild germs.

Teach The Controversy
Amorphia’s take on intellectual design, “The Truth”, creationism, UFOs and disproven ancient theories.

Sir Critter
Monocles, canes, top hats and gloves: Jeremy thought it was about time that nature spruced up its image and got with the programme.

Amorphia
A mix of humour in words and images with themes from robots, to Nietzsche to a drum playing t-rex.

And if you haven’t already figured it out, I’m also an Amorphia fan. Follow the links to the designers and put together your own customised colourful, snazzy and witty Amorphia Apparel. You’ll be sure to have someone asking you why there is a teapot in orbit on your shirt.