A Look Into The T-Shirt’s History

September 8, 2015

When the T-shirts first arrived on the scene over 100 years ago as standard issue uniform for the U.S. Navy, who could have had the foresight to realize that it would quickly become an impacting part of our culture as well as society in so many ways? Ranging from status symbol to walking billboards and advertising vehicles, these staples of our society have changed again and again, generation after generation. Here are some of the historical high points.

1913 The U.S. Navy supplies T-shirts to submarine technicians working in tight sweltering conditions as a more comfortable alternative to restrictive gear where heat would build up within the confines of the sub in excess of 120°F.

1944 The Tee shirt finds acceptance as a uniform for the common working man. Everyone is now wearing them ranging from landscapers and roofers to welders and the railroad workers.

1951 Hollywood has a tremendous impact in influencing our society of young people. Superstars such as James Dean took a pack of cigarettes and rolled it up in his sleeve. Remember the TV show, Happy days? What did the star of the show wear under his black leather jacket? That’s right – a white tee shirt.

1962 Marked the beginning of the hippie movement. Tie-dyed applications soon came on the scene. You started to see political messages screen printed across the front. Tank tops and sleeveless apparel start to emerge onto the scene.

1977 Slogans such, I love St. Louis, start to show up in stores across our great city. People are now using them as a billboard of self-expression.

1984 Television shows such as Miami Vice convey a fashion statement and influence our culture, not just across the country, but on a worldwide level.

2009 The St. Louis screen printing industry is changed forever because of the use of the Internet is now mainstream. Up until now, most people were intimidated to use their credit card when making an Internet purchase. Now they are starting to become more familiar with that type of financial transaction and a comfort level is obtained. Digital T-shirt printing comes on the scene and impacts the screen printing industry for over. Modern technology does away with the traditional method of color separations that were normally part of the typical printing process. Modern technology has impacted every sector of our lives as well as our economy, and the custom apparel business is no exception to that rule.

If you live or work in the greater St. Louis metropolitan area, we would love to have the opportunity to quote any or all of your custom embroidery, custom screen printing, or digital printing needs. We will give you a fair, competitive quote. We look forward to hearing from you.

Why Customers Buy

August 17, 2015

Many businesses expend a tremendous amount of effort developing the perfect sales strategy, but only a few make a concerned commitment to studying how people make buying decisions. One quote that we implement in our selling strategy is this: People don’t like to be sold, but they love to buy. This should be any organization’s or company’s guiding light when identifying and developing ways to gain new customers and grow their businesses.

The first step in doing this is this: Develop Your Likability. Some people are naturally likable, perhaps because of their demeanor, personality, or looks. For all the rest of us, we must overtly make others take notice. Likability and respect go hand in hand.

Here are 3 ways to develop and increase your likability.

  1. Be quick to respond. Let’s face it. People want to talk to a “live” person and not have to navigate their way through many layers, and then possibly be disconnected before they even reach a real person. Right then and there, most people will not even try to call back later. Offer generous hours of operation and phone coverage for your business.
  1. Be a good listener. Study the behaviors of those people in your life who are good listeners. Those listeners will not interrupt the other person in conversation, will ask open-ended questions, and exhibit engaging body language. They will not act like they’re bored and unsympathetic. They will be engaging and make you feel like you are the most important person to them at that very moment.
  1. Be appreciative. A once brilliant philosopher names, Anonymous said it perfectly. “People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.” This is so true and will always be true because of our human nature. People should feel good about themselves and what they are trying to accomplish after they have had a conversation with you. It doesn’t mean that you will always get the sale, but you will never get the sale if you make a person feel inferior in any way.

If you are in the market in the St. Louis, MO metropolitan area and are in need of custom screen printing for tees and custom embroidery for polos, please give us a call. You will always get a “live” person on the other end, except in the rare occasion that we are with another customer or temporarily unavailable. If you leave a voice mail, we will return the call as soon as possible. Hope to hear from you soon!

Beyond the Basics

July 24, 2015

For most custom screen printers, the plain white tee shirt, along with colors, is the meat and potatoes of their business. Many would go out of business if it weren’t for these types of shirts. There is nothing wrong with that, but there are more customers out there that are not looking for the standard t-shirt. They are looking for the trendier styles. It may still be a t shirt, but there will be more details about the shirt. The shirt may be a baseball jersey type with the sleeves being a different color than the body of the shirt.

One of the big trends today is the relaxed-fit T. Both men and women are preferring this styling than the fitted tees in many cases. Especially women are purchasing this type of t-shirt. They are now more concerned about comfort. However, the styling is also important. The boyfriend tees are becoming more and more popular for the ladies. Maybe one reason for that is this – ladies are wearing tight, slim jeans or leggings. Their pants are tight so they don’t want tight fitting tops.

Also popular with women are retail-inspired looks such as fringed and lacy tops, high-low hemlines, and fashion-forward flowy cuts that tie in with oversized styles. Bright pastels and nautical inspired colors are also popular.

Men and women alike are growing fonder of the softer materials. Tri-blends and ring spun cotton materials are very popular and are now available in most of the manufacturers’ apparel line. Demand is up for higher quality materials.

The eco-friendly tees are another niche that is gaining momentum. Many people are interested in these types of shirts, made with organic materials. They are willing to pay a little more to get these.

Regardless of the type of garment or material, please give us a call if you’re in the St. Louis area. We have been in business more than 20 years and have the experience behind us to tackle any custom screen printing or embroidery job. We have more than 300 organizations, individuals, and companies that we do business with. We would love to hear from you if you’re in the market for any custom silk screening, digital printing, or custom embroidery. Look forward to hearing from you soon.

Styling For Golf Shirts

June 23, 2015

The polo market is predominantly led by the three-button placket and two-button placket shirt front for the men. For women, there are some new items, such as the four-button plackets, V-neck Johnny collars , and even some five-button placket fronts.

There are new color trends along with new fabric and styling features. Of course, you have the basics such as navy, black, royal, red, white, just to name some of them. However, new fashion colors are leading the way as the page stoppers in your favorite catalogs. These eye-catching colors include orange, gold, teal, bright yellow, electric blue, lime, cobalt blue, raspberry pink, and others.

As the expansion continues into 100 percent polyester and polyester blends with performance features, we will continue to see great color and dye retention, giving us bright, lasting color. Placket shirts are getting a new, fresh look with these vibrant colors and features that polyester and polyester blends gives us.

Are you or your company or organization looking for some golf shirts with your logo on it? We are confident that we will be able to handle your order with the utmost care, consideration, and quality of service. Do you have a logo that you would like to have on a shirt, t-shirt, polo, cap, etc.? It is a very simple process to start the ball rolling. Give us a call or email us if you are in the St. Louis area. We can accommodate all your custom silk screening, custom embroidery, and digital printing. Hope to hear from you soon.

Cutting Edge Technology

May 30, 2015

Just when I think they’ve thought of everything they come up with something new. What was considered to be cutting-edge technology six months ago might be considered to be obsolete today. Never before in the history of mankind has there ever been a more exciting time to be an entrepreneur. I remember as a young boy going to work with my father who ran a small pharmacy located in

St. Louis. He was located in a building with five doctors and depended on those same physicians to send their patients down in order to have their prescriptions filled. That ended up to be the majority of his overall customer base and the other percentage was created by people calling in. He always had to be in the building in order to hear the phone ring in order to avoid missing any incoming calls. I remember the day that he got a 15 foot phone cord which allowed him to have the freedom to maneuver around his store. I remember thinking to myself, “This is awesome.”. I also remember having the desire to be an inventor, but I thought everything worthwhile had already been invented. I could not have been any more mistaken.

Today’s world has become a very small place due to the Internet and social media. Instead of incurring the overhead of a traditional brick-and-mortar building and all the expenses that go along with it, we are able to create virtual stores at a fraction of the expense of a physical building and therefore, cater to multiple cities simultaneously. People will normally do business by sitting in the comfort of their living room and do a relevant search on a major search engine such as T shirt printing St. Louis instead of having to get in their car and actually drive to a physical custom screen printing company location. I have been in sales my whole adult life and it used to be that the hardest part of the sales equation was finding someone who actually needed whatever it is you were selling at that particular moment in time. I used to do this by knocking on doors of local businesses and trying to get to the decision-maker. I would then ask him, “The next time you’re in the market for some custom embroidery or T shirt printing, if I could please have a chance to give you a quote? If I can’t give you a better value than what you have been getting thus far, then there is no reason to use me.”. I would like to try to create an incentive that would be worthwhile to give me the opportunity to get my foot in the door. After being given that chance, we knew that we would be able to give him a superior product along with a timely delivery. If we do the job correctly, the repeat orders along with the good referrals would simply take care of themselves.

You might not think that knocking on 100 doors and then saying the same thing over and over again was difficult, but believe me when I tell you that it was exhausting. Only about 3% actually needed screen printing at that moment in time and the rest would simply tell us to leave our business card and they would call us when they eventually would need more. What actually happened was they would take that business card and put it in a stack of 50 to 100 cards thick and after two or three months they would forget that it was even there.

With the advantages that today’s technology lends itself to, we don’t have to cold call at all. People actually seek us out and all we have to do is convince them why we’re going to give them the best overall value when it comes to their St. Louis digital T shirt printing requirements. Our custom screen printing company has access to the very finest equipment that our industry has to offer. Such as digital T-shirt printing technology which can reproduce the most complicated pieces of artwork in a matter of minutes. We also have access to the finest custom embroidery equipment which can lend itself to almost 400 stitches per minute.

Decorating Headwear

April 10, 2015

When you think of a decorated hat, the first image that pops in your head is probably a baseball cap. Ball caps are not the only type of decorated headwear. There are sun visors, beanies, safari hats, fedoras, and trucker caps, just to name a few. When choosing the decoration method, it must be suitable for the type of headwear you choose.

There are a few different ways to decorate headwear. Here are a few.

When decorating with ink, sublimation is a good technique with caps that are 100 percent polyester. However, the cap cannot have any parts that will melt under the high heat. This technique is used on a cap press. For a hat that isn’t 100% polyester, a patch can be created with the custom logo on it with an applique’ attached to the hat.

For a direct to garment application for a hat that isn’t 100 polyester or can’t withstand high temperatures, custom screen printing is a good option.

When decorating with thread, custom embroidery is an excellent technique. This method is usually more expensive, but it usually leads to a more impressive logo. One thing to consider is that you will only have to pay a one time fee for digitizing your logo if you don’t change it in the future. This being said, there will not be any additional charges when you want to run additional orders in the future. Also, it is typically easier to embroider your future orders than it would be to set up your orders for screen printing.

For all your custom headwear needs in the St. Louis area, whether embroidery or screen printing, give us a call or shoot us an email. If we don’t answer the phone right away, we will be faithful to call you right back.

Latest Trends in T-Shirt Decorations

March 25, 2015

Sublimation is huge in tee shirt decoration. Unusual and bold locations are key trends showing up. The nape of the neck has been popular for placement of a logo, but now a new trend has become common. That trend is the location of decoration whether screen printing or embroidery in the center front neck. Additionally, large, bold, vertical logos make the viewer take a moment to read or notice what is there. And don’t forget about placement of decorations on the sleeves. Extending brand recognition from one side of the body and then to the sleeve can be very effective.

Many of these types of printing are printed on wide-format printers, versus a traditional screen printing press. It is a wonderful printer that could increase your sales for your business.

Bottom line, anything goes for t-shirt decorations. However, listen to your customer for his needs and make suggestions accordingly. Keep on top of what the fashion trends are so you can knowledgeably speak to your customers. Our company always try to stay informed to give great advice to our customers in St. Louis, MO.

Find the Right On-The-Job Style

December 18, 2014

Have you walked into a business, whether it is a retail store or restaurant, and you had no idea who to talk to because no one had a uniform shirt on? I certainly have and it is frustrating. I truly have never understood why employees that deal with the public don’t have some type of uniform. I see that often in restaurants. How am I supposed to know who works there or not???

This being said, there are a vast number of options available. One fairly inexpensive option is a tee shirt with the company’s logo screen printed on the front. Or maybe you may want the company’s logo on the left chest and the employee’s name on the right chest. There are a lot of different types of garments, from t-shirts, polos, button down dress shirts, etc. We typically recommend that you use custom screen printing on the less expensive shirts such as t shirts and you custom embroidery on the more expensive shirts such as polos or button down dress shirts.

We would love to hear from you for all of your custom screen printing and custom embroidery needs in the St. Louis area. Give us a call. I am positive that we can give you a fair, competitive bid. Happy Holidays!!

Indian Summer

October 3, 2014

Do you remember the days in late September or early October as a kid in school when there were summer-like temperatures? I call those types of days, Indian Summer.  I didn’t think it was fair that we were in school during those days. I thought we should still be on summer vacation. In those days, it was warm during the day and cool at night. During the day, we were wearing t-shirts and shorts, but in the evening, we would need warmer clothing such as sweatshirts, jackets, and long sleeve tee shirts.

I love this type of weather. The cool evenings are great. It’s a great time to sit out on the patio with a fire in the fireplace. We just bought a fireplace and we are looking forward to using it before the real cold weather settles in.

Along with the change of seasons, comes a change in our wardrobe. We go from short sleeve t shirts to long sleeve tshirts and from no jacket or outer garment to sweatshirts, hoodies, or jackets. Is your company prepared for the change of seasons? We would love to supply you with a free quote on your company’s or organization’s custom apparel needs. Perhaps you need custom embroidered jackets or polos. Or maybe you need custom screen printing of long sleeve tee shirts or sweatshirts.

Whatever your needs, we are confident that we can accommodate those needs with a fair, competitive quote. Give us a call or send us an email if you are in the St. Louis area. We will respond promptly.

Today’s Outerwear Trends and Fashions

September 3, 2014

Trends have changed in outerwear, just as they have with any garment such as tee shirts, jackets, fleece, etc. As the weather is starting to change and our customers for custom screen printing and embroidery are gearing up for the fall season, we are going to talk a little bit about a few of the changes that are seen in outerwear specifically. We are talking about jackets, fleece, hoodies and any outerwear garment.

One of the trends is the customization and tailoring styles. Gone are the days when a woman received a jacket or tee shirt that is unisex. Of course, you can still purchase unisex garments, but manufacturers are now customizing and tailoring their garments to fit a woman’s body. Men and women are not built the same and many women want their jackets to fit so they are more flattering. Style details such as back pleats and adjustable cuffs or shockcords are not only useful in women’s garments, but they also create more movement and enhance overall customization, and offer a tailored fit for men as well.

A strongly-designed women’s or men’s piece should not interfere with its ability to be decorated by custom screen printing or embroidery. We would suggest to our customers the best garment depending on the application of their logo. An open conversation with us can save a lot of headaches down the road.

A well designed garment, whether that is outerwear or a tee shirt, is usually complemented with updated styling, which allows for the custom screen printing or custom embroidery to be applied outside of the standard left chest. Possible options include moving the logo location from the left chest to the shoulder or hemline, or creating a tone-on-tone logo to add finesse to a high-end corporate piece.

If you are in the St. Louis, MO area, we would love to talk with you concerning your custom silk screening or embroidery needs. We have decades of experience and are knowledgeable to help you walk through the entire process with as little pain as possible.