The Packaging
The shirts arrived in a CafePress plastic envelope with each shirt neatly folded, rolled up and cuffed with a small sleeve of recycled, brown kraft paper and a CafePress sticker. Simple, clean and lean. Tearing off the cuff and unrolling the shirt, I could almost hear the drumroll in my head.
The Ringer Tee - Baseball Blood Drop
The shirt is a CafePress brand shirt and is labeled as such. Shirt quality is very good and has just the right thickness--not too thick, not too thin. The collar and cuffs are also well-made and better quality than older varieties. My first impression of the blood drop print was so-so, but I realized quickly that I was comparing it to the original, photorealistic digital file, and well frankly, a printed t-shirt design almost never approaches what you see on the screen. My reservations namely had to do with the amount of noise or grain in the print, which I will discuss in just a bit. So after seeing the print, I instinctively ran my fingers over the printed area and I could feel mostly the cloth itself and only a hint of the ink—very impressive (as opposed to plastique or a paper-like iron-on), but I'll need to wash it a few times to see how much the image fades over time.
Back to the issue of noise and grain in the printed image, I decided to compare the results with other printed tees I had at home: a Mickey Mouse tee from Disney World and a Shamu tee from Sea World. What I found was that all the tees, including the blood drop baseball tee, were printed with some form of either CMYK or halftone screening, hence the noisy and grainy dot effect. My initial so-so reaction soon turned into satisfaction, and I find myself liking it the more and more I look at it. The only other critique I had was the dark areas being a bit lighter than desired, but again, this is somewhat typical of what you might find anywhere else as darks are rarely if ever true darks. So it's a minor quibble. While there's still room for improvement in direct-to-garment printing technology, CafePress' print quality is definitely acceptable, if not standard for its industry.
Pros: quality shirt, subtle print texture
Cons: a degree of noise/grain in print quality
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
The Red Jesus Saves Shirt
CafePress uses 100% cotton Gildan Ultra tees for their line of dark tees. One of the things I was looking forward to with CafePress was the technology used to print on dark shirts. All dark shirts are printed with a base of white ink that for all intensive purposes, looks and feels like screenprinted ink. Once this base is printed, all other colors are printed on top using direct-to-garment printing. Since this shirt only contains white ink, it's more or less like a silkscreened tee. Two minor quibbles about the white ink: 1) the edge of the print isn't quite as crisp as the original design--it still looks very good, and 2) there were occasional specks of the red fabric showing through the ink. Still I was quite happy with the results. One other thing worth noting: the shirt has an ever-so-slight film on and around the design that according to CafePress will disappear after the first washing. All said, I'm definitely excited about wearing this shirt.
Pros: white ink softer but comparable to screenprinted ink
Cons: minor blur on edges, minor fabric specks exposed
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
The Royal Blue Sayonara! Shirt 
The difference between this shirt and the Jesus Saves shirt is that it includes a layer of direct-to-garment printing on top of the white ink base. When I unrolled this shirt, I was less than thrilled. The red was more of an orange-red and had several vertical streaks of yellow running thru it, similar to when an inkjet printer starts printing line gaps when the ink is running low. I was a bit surprised that the yellow streaks or line gaps passed quality control. So after contacting CafePress for a refund, I received a quick apologetic letter from a customer support rep stating that not only would they gladly reprint the shirt, but also that I would not need to spend both my time and money sending the original shirt back to them. That's GREAT customer service, if not for questionable quality control! With that, I'll be posting a follow up review when the new shirt arrives.
Pros: excellent return policy
Cons: hit or miss on direct-to-garment printing colors
Preliminary Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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