Do you have what it takes to make your own t-shirts? Of course you do!

Whether you’re creating a promotional item or creating the next great political fashion statement, a printed t-shirt will get your message across like nothing else. With a net-connected PC, you can be on your way to printing your own t-shirts faster than you can do the laundry. And there’s no need for fancy graphics software or design chops.

Online t-shirt printing services remove many of the hassles normally associated with t-shirt printing. Coming up with a catchy slogan and great graphics used to be the toughest parts of t-shirt design. Okay, so they’re still two of the toughest parts, but services like Zazzle can help when it comes to online design and graphics … Zazzle’s online graphics creation tools are a hoot to use.

From online graphics to one-off ordering, Palo Alto-based Zazzle has resources that your local t-shirt printer simply does not. (The company has just landed a whopping $16 million in funding from venture capitalists John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins and Ram Shriram of Sherpalo Ventures. Doerr and Shriram were early backers of Google and just might be familiar with the financial prospects of customized schwag.)

But here’s a warning … when printing dozens upon dozens of t-shirts, new-fangled net printers like Zazzle and CafePress may eat away at your profits (or likewise, add to your costs). You’ll pay for convenience on those short-run jobs.

If you’re screen printing t-shirts in volume you’ll want to check local screen printing companies as well as online firms. It can be a real trick to find the right combination of price, quality, speed, and service. You should always be sure to compare apples to apples and 50/50 polyester/cotton blends to 50/50 polyester/cotton blends. When you get a bid that’s remarkably less then the competition, the difference has to be made up somewhere.

Related: T-Shirt Printing Tips

Tags: t-shirt printing