Remember that one-off “John Chow’s Blogging This” T-shirt that Market Leverage made for me. I thought that was really cool because I used to be in the printing industry and know how expensive it is to make just one T-shirt – you might as well order 100 because the cost is the same. At least that was how it was in the old day. However, thanks to new technologies and a website call BlueCotton (the subject of this review), anyone can design an one-off (or as many as you want) custom T-shirt without breaking the bank.
BlueCotton has put together a really sophisticated online design studio that gives you Photoshop-like control over the look and feel of the T-shirt. The online app, which took over six months to create, has been awarded the Adobe Site of The Day Award.
Choose from T-shirts, sweats, hats or other garments, and then go to work and unleash the creative designer in you. The interface of the online studio totally rocks. Even if you’re not buying a T-shirt, it’s fun just to play around with. Using my non-existent design skills, I was able to create the above T-shirt for John Chow dot Com in less than a minute. OK, the only thing I did was import a logo but the app gave me really good control over it.
BlueCotton used to have a minimum order of six T-shirts or one embroidered item. However, they’ve since removed the minimum order on the T-shirts. You can just order one if you want. Keep in mind that the more items you order, the lower the unit price. A single one-off custom T-shirt starts at around $20 and includes free shipping.
I’m going to fool around with BlueCotton some more and see if I can come up with a really cool T-shirt that I can make and give away to you guys. If you want, you can help me design a T-shirt for this blog and if I like it, I’ll order some and you’ll be known as the designer of the John Chow dot Com T-shirt and your design will also show up on BlueCotton’s Twitter stream. You’ll also get a free shirt of course.