When I was in my 20s I had a t-shirt I really liked. It was a horse head in sort of a Steve Miller style, in a wooden circle frame that had pegs on the frame. The shirt became old and tattered and eventually I used it to hold the driver's seat together on my very old car. It was still on there when I sold the car.
So I decided to create my own version of the shirt this year, from memory, drawing every line myself and improving the design to be more my taste. And picking a better shirt color (the original was orange!). I sent the same design to two different custom t-shirt companies, Cafepress (on the left) and Zazzle (on the right).
This is the Cafepress shirt. Since CP will only allow designs 10" wide, I downsized the design slightly to fit in 10" and added a bit of yellow to the circle. I think Cafepress did a great job with it.
This is the shirt I received from Zazzle. Even though the original design I sent in was 11.5" and the max size they allow is 14", it came back at 9.5"! Not sure if somehow I downsized it when in their design tool, or just why it was downsized. But the design is a half-inch smaller than the CP shirt.
A little closer view of the CP shirt. The horse is very white and the design is smooth to the touch.
A little closer view of the Zazzle shirt. The horse is a light gray and the design is very rough to the touch. Still looks cool, wish I would have added yellow to the circle on this one, too.
Close up of a random area on the CP shirt. Very nice details.
Close up on the same random area on the Zazzle shirt. To my eye, there is less contrast on this shirt. The blacks aren't as black.
An even closer close-up on the Cafepress shirt. Nice gradients in the shades.
An even closer close-up on the Zazzle shirt. Definitely a rough texture.
I put the two shirts right up against each other.
Detail towards the bottom.
Detail of the horse head really shows how white the Cafepress horse is versus the grayer and rougher Zazzle horse.
The fine print on the Cafepress shirt.
The fine print on the Zazzle shirt looks better to my eye.
Cafepress eye.
Zazzle eye.
Which shirt is better depends on your tastes, I guess. But there are clear differences between the shirts.
3 comments:
These Cafepress vs Zazzle posts are helpful. I've only use CP and had a shop for about 17 years but don't really promote them like I should. Revisiting the idea now. Thanks.
*used. Won't let me edit my typo :)
Very helpful comparisons, especially the close-ups. Thanks.
Post a Comment