How We Print 'Em

There's more than one way to put a design on a garment, and after almost 18 years on Mass St we've gotten picky about picking the right one. Every order gets matched to the process that'll look the most vibrant for the best price. Here's the menu.

Direct-to-Garment (DTG) Printing
Our favorite for white and light-colored garments. DTG prints your design straight onto the shirt at super high quality with no order minimums, and it works a lot like paper printing. About half of the tees that leave our shop are printed this way, hot & fresh.

Direct-to-Film (DTF) Transfer Printing
Two-step trick: we print your design in full color onto film, then heat-press it onto the garment. It's the move for dark garments and fabrics DTG can't handle, think polyester, blends, and trickier placements, and the colors come out bold.

Embroidery
Thread, not ink. We stitch your logo or design right into the garment, which is the go-to look for polos, quarter-zips, hats, and jackets. Tell us what you're outfitting and we'll help dial in size, placement, and thread colors.

Plastisol Transfers
Screen printing with a twist. The design gets screen printed with the same plastisol ink, just onto transfer sheets instead of straight onto shirts. Then we heat press it onto the garment when you need it. That last part is the magic: sizes shift, counts change, three more people want in at the last minute? We press more. It's our pick when the design is locked but the headcount isn't.

Screen Printing
The classic you're picturing: plastisol ink pressed through a screen, straight onto the shirt. It's the workhorse for big committed runs, with a four-color limit and a 24 garment minimum on our end. When you know your numbers and they're not going to move, this is your lane. Outfitting the whole team on a set roster? This is it.

How Long They Last
Straight answers, because "forever" isn't one. DTG ink soaks into the fabric, so with good care the print lasts the life of the shirt, softening a touch with every wash until it earns that vintage look. DTF transfers sit on top of the fabric and hold their color longer, staying bold wash after wash. Screen printing is the marathon runner of the bunch; properly cured ink survives years of hard use. Plastisol transfers wear like a screen print, because that's exactly what they are, just delivered by heat press. And embroidery should outlast everything, sometimes including the garment it's stitched on.

Care Instructions
One routine covers everything we print: turn it inside out, wash cold on gentle, skip the bleach and the fabric softener, then hang dry or tumble low. Never iron directly on a print; flip the shirt inside out or lay a cloth over it first. Do that and you'll land on the long end of every estimate above. Treat it like a gym towel and the timeline shortens accordingly.

Not sure which process is right for your order? Don't sweat it. Tell us what you're picturing and we'll pick the one that does it justice.