While some of you might have started learning German to understand our original Design Service video, we went and got a voice over for it. Michael from Design Service and Klaus from our Test Lab give us a glimpse at things behind the scenes. We show what happens from the point when your design is submitted to its plotting and weeding.

Michael first introduces us to the two most common reasons for the rejection of a vector graphic and how he checks to see if your designs meet our requirements for vector graphics. Then we head down to the Test Lab in production where Klaus plot designs with lines that are too thin and curves which are not closed just to see what happens! The results are eye-opening and they certainly convinced me that the strict vector design requirements are there for a very good reason.

Demand for organic Shirts is on the rise. That’s what our numbers say. And we are glad they say so – organic cotton is a good thing! No pesticides are used, they are good for the soil. But the question is: can they compete with regular shirts? Or will they shrink beyond recognition? That’s what we asked our colleagues over at the test lab.

continue reading ‘Testlab#2 - Do organic shirts shrink more than regular shirts?’

8 Pounds. That´s the price difference between our least expensive t-shirt - the “B&C Comfort T” - and our premium shirt from American Apparel.

8 Pounds for what? For the US-based hipster brand putting half-nacked women´s backs and hairy men´s chests on the back of shiny magazines? Well, to a certain extent. For AA paying its production workers relatively high wages? Yep, that, too.

But at the end of the day it´s the difference in quality (fabric and cut) that causes the difference in the prices. At least that´s what we were told

In order to find out how good the AA shirts actually are, we went to our Spreadshirt Testlab for the very first time. Markus, a guy from production, took a bunch of black AA tees, washed time up to 20 times and checked how the lengths of the shirts, the lengths of the sleeves, the chest and the waist widths developed.

It´s a nice side-effect of the shrinking test, that one can also see how the color and the fabric change by time.

continue reading ‘Spreadshirt Testlab #01: The American Apparel shrinking test’