“Let’s Summon Steven” – An Interview With Retro T-Shirt Illustrator Steven Rhodes

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you will already be familiar with the work of Steven Rhodes. (heck, you probably own a shirt or two).

Steven has had an incredible couple of years, due to his hilariously dark and perfectly illustrated takes on 70s and 80s style children’s book.

He’s dominated all the major print-on-demand sites, and has broken out beyond the internet to see his work sold in Hot Topic and Spencers stores across America.

I’ve admired Steven’s work and watched his growth from afar, and he was recently kind enough to answer some questions from nosy old me.

So without further ado – and with lights off and candles flickering ominously – I hereby summon Steven:

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10 Reasons To Organise Your T-Shirt Designs In a Spreadsheet / Database (And How To Actually Do It)

If you’ve created more than a handful of T-Shirt designs, then you’ve probably discovered that maintaining a well-organised portfolio of artwork can get very tricky, very fast.

And having hundreds (or more likely thousands) of designs is increasingly becoming a necessity for any T-Shirt designer who wants to maintain a steady royalty income – through organic, search-driven channels like Redbubble, Teepublic, Etsy, Merch By Amazon and others.

So what’s the best way to stay on top of a catalog of T-Shirt artwork containing thousands of individual design pieces?

Well in this blog post I’m going to share the basics of my own organisation system – and explain why this is not just a ‘nice thing to have that makes you feel more organised‘ – but is actually an incredibly powerful tool for…

• taking advantage of new opportunities in the print-on-demand space
• automating painful, repetitive tasks
• maximising the value of your work so you can squeeze as much benefit as possible from your T-Shirt design portfolio

sounds good right?

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“Draw Until Your Back Hurts” – An Interview With Best-Selling T-Shirt Artist Vincent Trinidad

Vincent Trinidad is a natural-born artist – and his creative output is nothing short of staggering.

For the past few years he’s focused that talent on designing T-Shirts, and he’s achieved enviable success.

Chances are you’ve seen his designs somewhere – from his bestsellers on Threadless, Teepublic, TeeFury and others to Redbubble’s Christmas Marketing Campaign, or even on Samuel L Jackson’s chest.

Vincent is not just a highly skilled artist – he’s also proved himself to be a brilliant ‘ideas man’ – producing original work that sells consistently, alongside pop culture inspired designs.

Vincent has been a valued member of my Facebook group since the early days – and was recently kind enough to answer some questions and share his advice for T-Shirt designers everywhere.

I’ve summarised some takeaways at the end of the post – where you’ll also find links to Vincent’s stores and social media.

OK – let’s get to it!

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Comparing Print-On-Demand T-Shirt Fulfillment Companies In 2018

Last year’s T-Shirt Fulfillment Companies review is a little out of date now, so it’s time for a fresh look.

In previous articles I’ve compared Printful, Printaura and Customcat – but recently I’ve begun using Printify to fulfil some of my Shopify orders.

Printify is a slightly different beast to other POD T-Shirt fulfilment options, in that Printify serves as a platform connecting you to a variety of fulfilment partners.

Printify doesn’t do any printing or shipping directly – instead, it sends your orders over to a partner of your choosing (Printify works with several different providers). In this way it creates direct competition between printing partners so you can compare the best price and turnaround time.

In this article I’m going to throw Printify into the mix, and compare (through direct experience) the prices, turnaround time and monthly costs / potential profits of these three services (Printful, CustomCat and Printify).

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The Rise Of ‘Officially Licensed’ Print-On-Demand T-Shirts (& Merch Collab)

For years now (maybe even decades) – the print-on-demand t-shirt industry has benefitted from – and contributed to – and incredible amount of Intellectual Property Infringement.

That infringement went largely unnoticed – or was ignored – for a long time, but increasingly the victims (or potential victims) of such infringement have begun to stir, and to realising what is going on.

In response to that stirring, some new opportunities are springing up.

The most recent and high-profile example of this is Amazon’s new ‘Merch Collab‘ program.

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