The process
How a MakeTheShirt order works
Four steps. Two of them are you typing, one is you choosing sizes, and one is us printing. Here is what happens at each, including the parts most shirt sites do not tell you about.
Step one: describe the shirt
The prompt box is the whole interface. Write what the shirt is for as if you were texting somebody about it. "Shirts for the Carter family reunion in Charlotte this July, we have been doing it for thirty years, the older folks like something classic" is a far better prompt than "family reunion shirt".
Specifics the generator uses well: the occasion, the year, the place, the name of the group, the mood you are after, and anything that is a running joke. Specifics it uses badly: exact hex colors, font names, and instructions about where to put things down to the millimetre. Describe the feeling, not the layout.
One prompt-writing habit is worth more than all the others: say who is wearing it. A design for eighty-year-old grandparents and a design for a college intramural team are different designs even when the words on them are identical.
Step two: pick the style, color, and placement
Three choices, and they all change what the generator produces rather than just filtering results afterwards.
- Style sets the visual language. A retro badge and a minimal line drawing of the same idea are not the same shirt.
- Garment color changes the artwork, not just the preview. Artwork built for a black shirt is drawn differently from artwork built for sand.
- Placement changes the shape of the design. A left-chest print is a small, dense mark. A full back print is a poster.
Step three: generate, look, adjust
You will get something back in well under a minute. Look at it the way the group will look at it: from ten feet away, in a photo, on somebody who is squinting into the sun.
Then edit the prompt rather than starting over. Adding one clause is usually enough. "Make the year bigger." "Drop the illustration and let the type carry it." "Warmer, less corporate." Each round is a fresh generation, so keep the versions you like as you go.
Step four: sizes, then print
For a single shirt you pick a size and check out. For a group you have two options: enter the sizes yourself if you already have them on a spreadsheet, or send everyone a size-collection link and let them fill in their own. The second one is slower by the calendar and faster by your own hours.
When the size run is closed, the whole order is produced together from one file. That matters more than it sounds: shirts printed in separate batches can come back with visibly different color, and on a group photo you will see it.
Where a person gets involved
The generation is automatic. The judgement is not. Send us the design and the occasion and a person will tell you honestly whether the type is too small to read on a moving child, whether the illustration will fill in on a dark garment, and whether the size run you have chosen is going to leave two people without a shirt.
That review costs nothing and it is the single highest-value thing we do. Ask for it before a group order, not after.
Questions
How long does the design step take?
A generation returns in under a minute. How long you spend is up to you, but most people are happy within three or four rounds, which is around ten minutes.
Can I upload my own artwork or a photo?
Not in the current version. Today the design is generated from your description. If you have existing artwork you need printed, email us and we will tell you whether we can work from it.
Can I change the design after I order?
Before production starts, yes, and you should just email us. Once a run is in production the file is locked, because that is the point at which garments start getting printed.
Do you keep my design?
The print-ready file stays attached to your order, so a rerun a year later comes off the same file and matches the first batch. See the privacy page for how long we keep things and what we do with them.