After reading Seth’s praise for custom printer CustomInk on more than one occasion, I decided I’d give them a shot.

Now, that’s not the whole truth.  The whole truth is that at first I couldn’t remember the name of the company.  I could, however, remember the name CafePress.  The funny thing is I’ve never used CafePress before – I’ve only ever heard of it.

What was it that made me consider CafePress before gritting my teeth and plundering Seth’s blog for the forgotten name?

Perhaps it is because I’ve heard so many people talk about CafePress, my mother in particular.  My mother is a pastel artist, and she does beautiful work.  She once considered using CafePress to distribute tiny prints of her work.  The samples we received in the mail weren’t any good.  Still, when it came time for me to put brand to cotton, I still went back to the inferior service first.

All I’m saying is that there is marketing at work here in a way that I don’t fully understand. I don’t typically find my mother in tribes to which I am a member.  Go figure.

Long story shorter, I was finally able to recall the name, and let me tell you: I am one satisfied potential customer.  The t-shirt design workshop CustomInk provides through their Web site is top-notch.  The interface is a little 2003; but the usability is unparalleled.  I had only one issue with the tool: it took me a while to figure out how to allow the white to stay in my uploaded art.  (There was a checkbox – I overlooked it.)

The t-shirts are for promoting coreylib – my universal API client (with caching built-in!). Ten t-shirts in two sizes for $251. That’s not bad, considering I’ll be creating ten community billboards the size of Large and Extra Large chests.

Best of all: the CustomInk workshop lets me share my designs with my audience ahead of time. Here’s hoping you guys like it.  Please note: I’ll probably be changing the tag line on the back – the current one is a bit too confrontational. (See, I’m trying to learn from my mistakes.)