Threadless clearly states what belt printing's imperfections can be WAY before this design.

Just return it and get something else.

pics or it didnt happen

take some pics

hah definitely not minor
i guess they are unique... but i hope mine doesnt turn out half as bad.
that honestly sucks man.

Thank you, threadless, for the notice a few days AFTER this design was printed.

We're sorry about this. We'll never say that we're perfect :( We realized a little too late that most people either didn't know what belt printing was, or didn't download the specialty printing document that explained the potential issues with belt printing.

This is a perfect example of how we're always trying to make things better for you guys. This was a mistake on our part, and we're doing our best to correct it by better informing our customers from this point on.

thanks for understanding...

also, in most cases, belt-printing issues are minor. this design has a TON of coverage, so imperfections are super, super noticeable. again, not trying to make excuses... just explaining that this print has a higher probability of imperfection.

:(

how level headed and caring.

DAMN YOUS THREADLESS!

Jokes aside, I agree, that amount of uniqueness would irk me a bit as well, glad to ehar threadless plans on making that more prominent.

So the shirt was imperfect, why don't you just notch it down as a mistake instead of making a blog flaming threadless. Did you even contact customer service on this?

A Sharpie will take care of any imperfections and make the experience of buying this shirt more interactive.

So the shirt was imperfect, why don't you just notch it down as a mistake instead of making a blog flaming threadless. Did you even contact customer service on this?

How would notching it down as a mistake be any different from the original post? And yes.

Did you try a Sharpie?

Because your original post made it seem like the big bad company is out to get you.

A Sharpie will take care of any imperfections and make the experience of buying this shirt more interactive.

hahahahha

Oh? How so?

I think it's a fair point. I confess to knowing very little about belt-printing and was unsure exactly how imperfect the imperfections are for this process. You have every right to be frustrated, but they're good eggs at Threadless, so I'm sure it won't be a problem getting a replacement or a refund.

Goldensara, I dont see how that could possibly seem like a "big bad company is out to get" me.

SHARPIE, MOTHER FUCKER! HAVE YOU TRIED ONE?!?

professorE, concerning the sharpie: I can only assume that the sharpie markings will fade in the wash, but do you know if it will bleed onto other items in the wash?

I guess he did not professor.

nice reference professorE.

nigar: My point is yeah the shirt shouldn't have that many imperfections but this blog is a little too aggressive and unnecessary. Sort it out with customer service and thats the end of it.

Actually, a friend splattered bleach on a sweatshirt of mine a few years ago. It was a dark grey sweatshirt, but I put black Sharpie on it since it was better than white. I had to touch it up every 2-3 washings, but never noticed any adverse effects on any of my other laundry.

I was washing in warm/cold at the time. I recommend washing in cold/cold now, so it should be even better.

With a risk that it could have turned into Stk Mountain mark II, I wonder how much of a pain in the arse it would have been to manually touchup the imperfections? Or at least deal with the worst of the imperfections...

I think it's easier to get away with fabric folds and other causes of imperfections in some patterned designs, but in a design where the belt print is a solid area of colour (especially black on white) there is reasonable grounds to be concerned about the quality of the print.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! F 'ING SHARPIE!

in all of my expierences sharpie HAS NOT beld in the wash. yes it WILL fade.

and i come from a long line of "hey draw something cool on my pants/shirt/hoodie/shoe"

be glad its not white print on a blcak shirt!

Like I said - touch it up every 2-3 washings or as needed.

I just tried a small portion, the sharpie ink is bluish compared to the shirt's ink. It's strikingly noticeable in the larger colored-in areas...dammit.

use marks-a-lot!

that's pretty drastic. how was it not noticed before it was shipped?

nigarnigarnigar, I think from now on, threadless should just send you blank t-shirts and you can just make your own designs.
:D

but make sure the marker is, in fact black.

When you seek quantity over quality, something threadless is getting worse about, you start to dilute the brand. I would think that if one knew about the seam and collar issue with belt printing, you wouldnt chose a design that accented those flaws and made it look so craptastic. Perfect the technique, THEN print this sort of design.

duracell, it's not a matter of perfecting the technique. belt-printing has been around for about 30 years, and the company we use to do the printing is considered one of the best - if not the best - in the country. i totally understand how people would feel upset by this whole fiasco. we realize now that we certainly can't expect everyone to be ok with imperfections simply because we warn of them. while a lot of people are really into this tee and understand the nature of belt-printed designs, the best we can do is provide full disclosure about the possibility of imperfections for the people who may simply see an imperfection as an imperfections - regardless of the reason.

well i think when you use the word imperfection you assume the problems to be very little...maybe saying something like the imperfection may range from small to large would be a more true statement

it's not about perfecting the technique as the nature of the process this technique requires is what creates these problems. it's about properly educating our community of the problems before they buy the shirt.

belt printing has become pretty popular the past few years and if you have purchased any belt printed tees from anyone else you will notice the same smudges and issues...

that said, some designs are more conducive to using this technique than others and this one is on the super-hard-to-do side of the equation. a testament to that would be the fact that we've belt printed many designs before this one without people getting upset about the end product. pretty much the only way you could do this better would be to use an entirely different technique - print the fabric before it's sewn together and then cut and sew it after the fact. we don't have that capability now but we're working on it.

we knew that the goods we were shipping had these imperfections and we thought our customers knew about this as it's very common in tee shirt printing today, but we discovered we needed to make it more clear on the product page and we apologize for any inconvenience it may have caused anyone. if anyone had any issues please feel free to email customer service and they will take care of you.

Oh my goodness. I think that the little imperfections would make each shirt unique and show off how cool this shirt was printed. What else could Threadless do, sew some black cotton fabric to some white cotton fabric? That wouldn't look very good. I think that the printing technique is awesome.

man ifdl beat me to the punch haha

Actually, I think that the places where the black ink doesn't completely cover the white shirt, or maybe after you wash it and the ink cracks a bit, would make the design look more realistic, like a dirty window or whatever it is. Haha.

iFDL, we flew to the moon 40 years ago. If we can do that then I'm sure someone can figure out how to spread ink correctly on a t-shirt. Im not mad, Im just saying maybe some of the money you guys make should be spent on figuring this out.

I think threadless should use nigar's photos in this shirt's presentation page because it highlights the "minor imperfections" belt printing can bring so the buyer can reconsider purchasing this shirt. I thankyou for the pictures, as I almost made the mistake of buying this shirt.

Haha, he beat you skaw because you were writing a novel about it. But that is awesome. It's great that Threadless is so active in the community and obviously cares about communicating with its customers.

Casemee, but the thing is not everyone wants those effects. The people who purchase these shirts expects to get what was advertised.

Duracell, that's so harsh!

And P.S. - The moon landing was NOT REAL. Come on!

Oh i see skaw. As long as you guys are trying then its cool man.

casemee tellin' it like it is...




...about [+d-] and the moon landing.

casemee - that was actually part of our internal discussion too about the imperfections, that since the black represents dirt being squeegee'd off the clean white surface, it kinda makes sense.

talib - definitely, i agree. we will put up close-up photos of the imperfections on the product page.

I can't believe that people are getting so upset about it. I don't really like the design of the shirt, but the printing is just so unique. I actually LIKE the printing!! Looks more real. Threadless, keepin' it real. Jeah, boyyyeee.

it is pretty understandable even to the common-man that belt prints are going to have some minor defects. heck, when i bought some 10+ years ago (yes i'm old, it was probably 20 yrs), shirts printed this way came w/ tags that explained why each shirt was a "one of a kind."

that being said, there does need to be a bit of quality control before shirts ship out. there's a level that goes beyond "imperfections" and i think the pictures above are a good example of that. not that threadless doesn't have EXCEPTIONAL customer service (they do!) willing to help w/ the return processes to fix the error...but, as a buyer, it is a let-down to get excited about a shirt and have to return it.

blah this is long, sorry. i'm just wondering if there is a step in the process where the shirts could have been looked at before being sent.

i guess though, for every customer who doesn't like these defaults , are two customers who don't mind at all.


/conversation with myself