Same-day t-shirt printing: what can actually be done today

Someone orders two hundred shirts at eleven in the morning for an event that evening. That happens, and it works, and it is the reason we keep a stock of specific blanks rather than ordering everything in as it sells.

The cut-off

1 PM, on a business day, in the time zone of whichever shop prints your order. Before that, your job joins today's production run. After that, it normally goes into tomorrow's.

Normally. A small job at three in the afternoon often still fits, because production is not a wall that closes at one o'clock — it is a queue with a realistic end to the day. Call us. We will look at what is already in the queue and tell you yes or no while you are on the phone, which is more useful than a checkbox that guesses.

What we can print today

Same day depends on the blank being on the shelf. These are the ones we hold for rush work:

• Next Level 3600 cotton tee, black and white
• Hanes F170 heavyweight hoodie
• Gildan midweight crewneck sweatshirt
• Tote bags
• Youth and toddler tees
• 11oz and 15oz mugs
• 16x20 photo posters
• Classic and trucker caps, embroidered

Everything else in the catalogue is still quick, just not today — from next day to several business days depending on the item. Each product page shows its printing speed, so you can see what is possible before you pay rather than discovering it afterwards.

What does not fit in a day

Most other embroidery. Only the classic cap and the trucker hat can be stitched the same business day; other cap styles and beanies show their own speed in the catalogue. Specialty garments we do not stock, and anything we have to bring in from a supplier, also need the extra days.

Sizes above 2XL, specific colourways and anything unusual are worth a phone call rather than an assumption.

Getting it

Pickup is free and same-day from either shop. Long Island City in New York is ten minutes from Midtown, open 8 AM to 7 PM on weekdays with round-the-clock pickup. Compton in Los Angeles runs 9 AM to 4 PM on weekdays.

Within New York, New Jersey and Connecticut a courier runs $44. Same day printing does not include delivery time, so the courier leaves once the order is ready.

Anywhere else in the country, a job finished before the evening carrier pickup leaves the shop that night. Pick an overnight method at checkout and shirts printed this afternoon arrive in Chicago the next day. This is the part people miss — same day printing is useful well outside the two cities we print in.

Artwork, which is where rush orders actually fail

Production is rarely the bottleneck. The file is.

A 400-pixel logo pulled off a website cannot be printed at 11 inches wide, and no amount of urgency changes that. Give us 150 dpi or better at final print size, PNG with a transparent background if you can manage it. Our print area is 14 by 16 inches.

If the file is not ready, send it anyway and say when you need the shirts. Design help costs nothing and rush jobs go to the front of that queue. What we will not do is guess at an unclear file and print two hundred shirts wrong — we will call you, which costs ten minutes and saves the order.

Where to start

The same day printing page lists the qualifying items, with separate pages for New York and Los Angeles. There is no minimum on the stocked blanks, so a single shirt for tonight is a perfectly normal order to place at noon — why that works is a short read. New York orders have a few local quirks worth knowing, which the rush orders article goes through.