T-Shirt Printers
T-shirt printers are found at carnivals, in the back of Mad Magazine, and in the rear corner of shopping malls, at kiosks or in the few remaining hippie shops in cities in towns all over the country. You know the ones, they sell crystal necklaces, fluorescent hemp posters, and whoopee cushions as well as a myriad of engraved yourself or previously engraved t-shirt designs. Well behind that hippie façade is a highly calculating businessman dictating the every move of said hippie, including what t-shirts to print depending on the marketing trends of the then current hippie populous.

Ahem.

Fortunately for the businessman, his marketing strategy hasn’t changed all that much in decades. Hemp, Hendrix, Grateful Dead, psychedelic images in the 70’s – psychedelic images, Grateful Dead, (RIP Jimi) Phish, Ben & Jerry’s, Hemp in the 90’s straight into today. I speak not merely from observation, I once was a wanna be suburban hippie.

One thing in this business model which will probably never falter is the t-shirt craze; people love to wear the allegiances, like, well, T-shirts! For the industrious hippie out there who loves to buck convention and desires to get ahead, all they need is a little start up capital and they can churn out a fairly low cost/high profit return in t-shirt sales using t-shirt printers.

There are many different varieties of t-shirt printer available; some using real ink to actually print the design on the t-shirt itself; others using a screen design. The screening is a less expensive but not as nice option, in terms of quality and you probably won’t be able to do as high a markup on these shirts. Some of the newer designs include felt lettering to show your loyalty to your favorite band or superstar.

T-shirt printing has even caught on in the UK with t-shirt and banner printers popping up all around the square to suck in gullible American tourists who think that t-shirts are the absolute do all to end all for showing pride, support, or likeability.

If you’re interested in doing it yourself, there are loads of cheap t-shirt printers available on the internet. Be careful though; make sure you know what you’re investing in; you want to be sure you’re able to produce the type of shirt that’s right for you.