I am currently in the process of making revisions to a couple of the designs in the Tree-Shirts shop. I was contacted by the shirt-maker, Spreadshirt, because a few designs were too intricate to be cut and printed by hand.  Apparently there are three different methods by which they can digitally print: digital direct, digital transfer, and digital transfer overlay. Digital Direct doesn’t have any restrictions since it’s completely automatic, but the other two methods have to be cut out by hand so there are limitations and requirements with regard to design thickness and negative space.

The two designs that I’ve had to change are the Carbon Footprint and Moonglade Swirl. I’ve essentially thickened the borders around the design and eliminated negative-space so they can be cut out by hand. Here is an example of the difference between the old Moonglade Swirl design and the new:

Sample of Original “Moonglade Swirl” Design	Sample of Revised “Moonglade Swirl” Design Note Interior Fill

The above changes give the design a more art-nouveau feel (which I actually really love), but it does reduce how delicate it appears and makes it less appropriate for shirts that have a lighter background. I still think it will look nice on a Navy Blue which is my preference. The change to the Carbon Footprint shirts includes a white border around the leaves and changes the gradient glow around the lettering to a solid line which hopefully shouldn’t interfere with its comic book “feel.”

Sample of Original “Carbon Footprint” Design	Sample of Revised “Carbon Footprint” Design

If you have been contacted by Spreadshirt about your design being on hold, this is likely the reason. I want to apologize for the delay; I’ve never done this before and, despite having looked through the documentation on their site, didn’t find these restrictions until after I was called. I understand that anyone whose orders have been placed on hold will have the option to cancel them (if you don’t like the revisions to the design, please don’t hesitate to do so — your satisfaction is worth more to me than any commission) or to move your design to another shirt that allows digital direct printing. Going forward, I should have a much better idea of what can and cannot be done and there (hopefully) shouldn’t be any more problems of this nature!

Also, sorry I keep posting about the shirts, but I wanted to make sure anyone who had purchased one was aware of what is going on. I now return you to your regularly scheduled Midsummer Festival nonsense.

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