Read this list, and you will never run out of ideas on using a custom t-shirt:

1. Have a great design or a photo? Go ahead and show it off! Goto exprez custom , get it printed on a t-shirt and shipped to you
2. If you want to give a memorable gift to a special person in your life, let your creativity do the job.  Rest assured, your custom t-shirt will be remembered.
3. Are you organizing or attending an event? Get custom t-shirts. Check out our great discounts on bulk orders.
4. Create a unique brand for your club, sports team or group.  In a few clicks, create  t-shirts with your logo and have them shipped.
5. Graduating and signing t-shirts for your friends? Give a modern twist by creating custom t-shirts with signatures or memorable pictures. It will surely look great,  and last much longer!
6. Are you passionately associated with a cause, political party or a charismatic leader? Express your passion through custom t-shirts.
7. With the new year just around the corner, how about creating a t-shirt with your imagination of the coming year? We hope it brings you luck in the days to come!
8. Give your blog or website a marketing boost.   Your readers could even wear your blog.  Design your custom gift shop and link it from your blog. See a sample gift shop here.
9. Do you want to lighten up a moment or bring a smile to people around you? Think about a hilarious slogan and print it on a t-shirt.
10. You are unique.. Live up to your uniqueness, and wrap yourself in a custom t-shirt that only you can make.  Stand out!

Sunil Patil’s designs are cool, funny and sometimes thought provocative. See his designs here. Sunil answers “5 questions” posed by exprez.in.

What is the most exciting thing about creating designs for T-Shirts?
T-shirts are a very unique medium for art. That is, art worn on one’s body! This is what thrills me the most.

What makes your designs unique?
I don’t stick to any one particular style of designing. I like bringing a great variety of styles into my designs. Every design I create is all by itself. This is the uniqueness of my designs, I feel.

Whats your favorite theme for designs?
The list is virtually endless! The most favorite theme is ‘Pop Culture’.

Where do you look for inspiration while creating designs?
I find inspiration for my designs from the whole diversity of life around me. Then I get into a sort of day-dreaming state (literally lying on the bed), that’s when the actual design idea emerges!

How can user community of a web site can help you to create exceptional designs?
The user community could indeed be a great source of ideas and inspirations. This community serves as a bridge between the end user and the designer. It is about bringing design ideas a lot closer to what the end user desires.

DTG or Direct to Garment Printing technology is probably older than 5 years. It is an exciting and emerging field in which we have a deep interest so our ears  pop up whenever there is a talk about DTG.  The recently concluded Imprinted Sportswear Show (ISS) provided some clues on where this technology is heading.

If anyone is looking for DTG printers, the words of caution would be  “be prepared to be confused” -  unless you’ve done your homework. That’s true about any technology choices these days. Luckily for us, we had studied the various options so it was easier to spot the trends.

Generally, people have extreme experiences with DTG.  Some  have seen their investment of thousands of dollars going down the drain after failing to make these machines work.  Others have built solid business around this technology  so due diligence will not harm anybody.

ISS proves one thing loud and clear. DTG technology has come a long way and it is a reliable alternative to conventional Screen printing or heat transfer technologies.  Compared to the last year, there are couple of main trends we see at this year’s show.

First,  some DTG brands are conspicuously missing from the show this year. This includes Flexi-jet and T-Jet. Not sure if they are bankrupt or  didn’t find it useful to attend the show.

The brands that are represented in the show include DTG,  Anajet,  Kornit, and Brother.  Most of these vendors have made some technology enhancements but most of them seem to be  incremental changes except for the case of Brother. Anajet and DTG – all have better models but the changes from the previous model do not seem that obvious. We believe most of the changes are “bug fixes” than any real feature enhancements.  It does make sense to do that since what DTG printers need at this point is not supporting Wi-Fi but rather stability and reliability.

Looking at the trend, it seems like the next level of innovation would come from the ink.  It is hard to even know what kind of ink is used in these printers since they keep that information confidential. Right now,  ink is fairly expensive to make it an alternative for  screen printing especially for large volume orders.

The most exciting change in the DTG landscape is Brother’s new DTG printer GT-782.  Brother has an older DTG printer(GT541)  which is stable but can only print on light garments.

With the new printer, Brother seems to have taken two leaps in one step. The new model supports printing on black and light color t-shirts.  Also,  it can print two t-shirts at a time – a good feature for bulk production. The downside is that GT-782 is too  expensive and bulky for small companies.  It seems like the target market for this printer is not really small start-ups but medium to large T-shirt production companies.

This is an interesting development since this type of reliable and high-performing machines will make DTG more popular and will position it as a strong alternative to screen printing.

The way GT-782 prints on black is fun to watch. It puts a white underlay (or base) on the t-shirt  and then print the actual image on top it. The print quality looks really good.  See some sample prints below.

It is clear that the envelope is going to be continually pushed in the  DTG space. We will be seeing more efficient DTG printers and advancement in the ink technology in the next few years.  We are truly excited to be part of this business revolution and keeping a close eye on any innovations in this area.

Shweta Pokharna is one of the early adopters who embraced the idea of exprez.  As a highly talented designer, her designs come across as complex and intricate at the same time conveying a deep sense of abstraction.   We are proud to kick off the “Mind of a Designer” series, where we feature interviews with designers, with  Shweta’s take on our 5 questions.

Please see Shweta’s designs here.

Whats the most exciting thing about creating designs for T-Shirts?

It gives me a high to see people wearing my ideas and creativity .Own t-shirt designs is a way to share your creativity with the world.

The passion and hard work I put in my designs make my designs unique.

I love creating designs for kids , sports,trendy designs like skulls and tattoo.

I get ideas from nature, my surroundings and of course the sea of inspiration the internet search.

I believe that too many cooks spoils the broth. So an artist should not react to every feedback he or she recieves from the user community. Art has no defined form or value. It is abstract. What is good to me may not be liked by other. So an artist should believe in his or her talent and try to learn something new with each passing day, never stop learning and who knows one day you can create exceptional design.

A new power-packed tool for T-Shirt customization is here.

The new tool offers a variety of features including:

• A simpler interface to select fabric style, color, size and quantity
• Magnified view option, which allows users to move the cursor over the t-shirt or design and see finer details
• A “design view” that gives close-up view of the design
• Zoom option – A clear and bigger image in a darker background

T-Shirt Configuration and Buy Page

Here is the screen shot which shows the “magnified view”. User can choose the part of the image to be magnified just by moving the cursor on the image.

Another cool feature is the zoom option.  Click on the “See Bigger Image” button, and you will get a nice magnified image on a black background. Remember not to move cursor from the image button, otherwise the zoomed image will disappear.

We have also provided water-marking feature to help protect designs.

Zoom view of the design

Also, you can go to the full fledged T-Shirt designer anytime  using the “Edit this Design” option. This will load the T-Shirt designer which has all the advanced features.

All in all, we hope the new tool will provide user experience easy and fun.  Try the tool yourself and let us know what you think.

We are on a journey that explores creative and technological possibilities.  We don’t know where it will take us but the ambition is nothing shorter than reconfiguring the way people think about products used  everyday.  “A journey of 1000 miles begins with one step” – even Tiger Woods has to “Tee off”  before winning the Masters Tournament..

In the next few weeks, we will be introducing many  enhancements to the web site – some big,  some small.  We deeply care about user experience. Every click we save, every second  we cut down from page loading counts.. they count in a big way!

We will cover all enhancements in this blog. We hope users will complete the loop with feedback and keep us honest. The improvements will be gradual, but they will bring us closer to our primary commitment – providing exceptional user experience!

Ever wanted to know how designers think and seek inspiration? May be like reading the “mind of a designer”? Yes .. We are introducing “Mind of a Designer” series that will feature an up-close interaction with our talented designers. We pose five questions to Designers and hopefully the answers will shed light on their creative minds. Wait for these interviews in the coming days…

Will you be excited to see people wearning T-Shirts with your designs?

Do you want to make your designs work hard and  earn money for you?

If yes, you should check out exprez.in “Royal-TEE” program. This is how it works:

• Upload your designs
• Community votes
• Selected designs  get promoted to catalog

What do you get in return?

• 10% royalty for every design that is sold.  This is true even for designs that do not make into the catalog
• A free T-Shirt wth your design printed on it (For designs that are selected into the catalog)
• A chance to win Cash and Gift worth Rs. 10,000.00 during the periodical “Royal-TEE” best design selection.

It is easy to participate. Visit the  submit page and start uploading your desings today….

These days, new forms of media are popping up like mushrooms . Many of these mediums thrive on latest and greatest technologies. Most often, they require users to have access to sophisticated technologies. It is great that we’ve Facebook to share everything going on in our lives and around the world but that has no use unless you have Internet, and a computer to connect. Doesn’t that say there is a need for simplifying communication?

Wouldn’t it be great if we could take something like a T-shirt and reinvent it as a media?

To begin with, let us see what  constitutes  good media. First of all it should be able to reach large number of people in a short amount of time. News papers with its efficient distribution system can reach millions of people in a decent amount of time. A single T-shirt may not reach a wide audience but imagine hundreds of people wearing t-shirts with a specific message. We are already seeing this in political movements, and product promotions.

Secondly, every media should have its own unique language. Sometimes the medium becomes the message. Ancient Sumerian seals had a limited real estate so they used pictures to record ideas. The invention of books by Chinese led to books, which provided  means for communicating topics in depth. In the 21st century, we are seeing SMS and Twitter setting a limit on messages and thereby creating a new form of language. Now, we are seeing slogans and designs specifically designed for T-Shirts.

Finally, media should be convenient and enjoyable for people to use. People consume news, ads and information just like they consume other things. Well designed and funny t-shirts are fun to watch and talk about. There are infinite possibilities to make them interesting .

To be fair, T-shirts are not going to replace any other media forms but there is a role for them. The television channels like CNN and BBC are the prime source of breaking news. Increasingly, Internet channels are replacing cable news for breaking news, especially when citizen journalists are involved. The second level in the news cycle is analyzing and magnifying what has happened. This is where blogs and more recently newspapers are playing a big role.

So far, slogan T-Shirts have been used to amplify a view point or idea but there is an interesting technology development that could make them suitable for delivering even breaking news. This is digital printing coupled with online customization. With digital printing , you can print any design instantly on T-shirts. The experiment with CNN headlines T-shirts is a very good example of this trend.

Will there be a day when we read breaking news on somebody’s T-Shirt? For sure, we are enabling the technology. Rest we need to wait and see.

Does the global economic recession matter? Not if you are determined to step up and make a difference. When everyone is fearful a few could be hopeful.

We recently made a technology enhancement on T-shirt printing.  It is our statement that we want to be on the side of hope. Now, we can do a photo of vibrant colors or a plain text with just one color not losing its originality.

This shows we are committed to innovation and better user experience. It is not about being “one of the many stars” but rather being “star of many”.

If you are waiting to buy your first custom t-shirt, don’t wait anymore. Be our guest and let your creativity flow. We will take care of the rest.