Podcast: From Phone Cases to Graphic T-Shirts
After 10 years of running Talk & Tell, I’ve finally launched something I’ve wanted to do for years…
I designed and made graphic t-shirts, something I personally love which you’ll find me dressed in 90% of the time. But not in a “let’s quickly upload some tees and hope for the best” way. I worked with Stahls, one of the leading names in heat presses and heat transfer printing, and we documented the whole thing on their Garment Decorators Podcast.
If you’re interested in:
building a small business
printing your own t-shirts
starting a garment decoration setup
or seeing how I’ve built this new side of Talk & Tell
This podcast episode is for you.
Why I Chose to Print My Own T-Shirts (Instead of Outsourcing)
When I decided to make graphic t-shirts, I had two options:
Outsource everything.
Bring production in-house and learn how to do it properly.
If you know me, you know which one I picked. I love getting stuck in and learning how to do something new.
I wanted:
full creative control
faster design turnaround
the ability to test new ideas
and consistent quality
Outsourcing would’ve been easier maybe, but it wouldn’t have given me the flexibility I wanted so that’s where Stahls came in.
Why I Partnered with Stahls
If you’ve ever Googled “how to print your own t-shirts” or “best heat press for small business”, you’ve probably come across Stahls.
They’re known globally for:
professional heat presses
high-quality heat transfers
garment decoration systems used by real businesses
When I started researching or I should say hyper fixated on heat transfer printing, their equipment kept coming up. And not in a flashy influencer way, but in a “people who care about quality use this” way. So I reached out to them, starting with industry-leading equipment from day one just made sense for my established business.
We worked together to build a setup that would allow me to:
print on demand
maintain professional level results
scale properly
not compromise on detail or colour
How I’m Printing Talk & Tell T-Shirts
I’m using heat transfer printing (also known as DTF) with the Hotronix Auto Open Clam Heat Press machine, because for a small brand, it’s one of the smartest ways to:
launch without huge stock investment
test designs quickly
print to order
refine artwork over time
I love how this allows to me to have creative freedom with such a quick turnaround. And because Talk & Tell designs are bold, colourful and illustration heavy, I needed transfers that could hold detail properly and colours that actually pop.
Quality was non-negotiable for me and I found out that designing for fabric is completely different to what I was use to, I thought I could just take my phone case designs and stick them on a t-shirt. Turns out it wasn’t as simple as that. T-shirts are a completely different canvas, scale, balance, placement, everything changes. Some designs that look perfect on a small surface just don’t translate to a full garment which meant I had to rethink compositions, test placements, and experiment properly. That’s one of the biggest benefits of working with a print-on-demand setup using heat transfers, I can test without committing to hundreds of wasted units.
If you’re a small business thinking about printing your own t-shirts, some of the things I’ve learned is this allows for flexibility, faster turnarounds, your not locked into bulk screen printing runs, you’re not guessing quantities and most of all you’re not stuck with designs that don’t sell.
This has been such an exciting passion project for me. Bringing production in-house, learning the process properly and collaborating with Stahls has given me a completely new level of creativity and I’m only just getting started.
Watch or listen the full podcast now to see how it all came together.