Tee shirt printers in Milwaukee area?

[chadomac]

I want to get some tee shirts made for my band sometime in the next few months. Not a huge run... I probably want to make between 50 and 100 of one particular design.

 

Anyone have any recommendations for tee shirt printers in southeast Wisconsin? I'm looking for great shirt quality at a reasonable price, just like anyone else.

[thebruce44]

Wow, I actually just started a shirt business since I was laid off and can't find a full time engineering position anywhere. I don't want this to sound like spam, so I will send you a PM. If anyone else is interested though, PM me. I will have a lot of Brewer shirts coming out in the Spring as well.

[InsomniacInkRoss]

I have a recommendation, Insomniac Ink LLC: www.insomniacink.com

 

I will send you a PM as well, we have great quality, and the best prices.

 

I know we have many satisfied customers right here on BrewerFan.net

[Point Beer Is Best]

Kind of off-topic, but it's something I've always been curious about - the t-shirts advertised on your sites seem to incorporate or copy identically well-known slogans and images that are copyrighted. Are you paying some sort of fee for their use? I'm assuming NBC Universal wouldn't be pleased with someone selling Dwight Schrute t-shirts without being paid a licensing fee, for example. (I'm honestly just curious, I'm not meaning for this to come off as some holier-than-thou rant).

[thebruce44]

Insomniac, you really do have some amazing prices and I know your shirts are high quality since I consider myself a satisfied customer (I proudly wear my Wisonsin, Illinois is beneath us shirt all the time around Illinois). I am very impressed by your site and designs.

 

In terms of the whole copyright issue, I will try to explain this as well as I can and to the best of my ability. I have done a bit of research obviously, but I think in general most people who make shirts just just take the me too approach (they see a million Office shirts on Ebay so just figure its okay). I am not saying my information is entirely correct and I would love for a lawyer to explain this, but here goes.

 

In terms of the Dwight Schrute shirts you referenced, the name Dwight Schrute is not copyrighted or trademarked. I believe the image of a screen capture of Dwight is. Now I have seen people take images they found on the internet or directly captured from a tv show and use them on a shirt, and this is wrong to me and I am sure to NBC or whatever large company owns said image. For my Dwight shirts, that image of Dwight is my own. Yes, I based it off of a screen capture, but spent quite a bit of time in photoshop to recreate something that would go great on a shirt. If you look very closely, you can probably tell that many of the lines are drawn with a mouse on a computer by someone particularly untalented (myself), while the shading is based more off the screen shot but still took a lot of work in photoshop and ultimately a tracing in a vector graphics program. If I saw my Dwight image on someone else's shirt, I would be upset, although I am sure that type of thing happens all the time.

 

Now the Dwight shirt I have with the picture Pam drew when they were trying to catch the pervert...that one was not very modified. I guess I am kinda taking a me too approach with that particular shirt, since they are for sale everywhere and I will admit to that. If anyone would be upset by that or if NBC contacted me, I would be happy to take it down.

 

One thing I would not do (although I have seen a ton of them on ebay) would be to use a team sports logo or a cartoon character like Micky Mouse. I have heard of people getting into trouble for doing this, as those images are trademarked. I have not heard of anyone getting into trouble for selling shirts based off The Office or other TV shows/movies.

 

The whole topic gets fuzzier and fuzzier as the internet takes over. There is so much content out there now that is created by everyday people that it is getting very difficult to know what you can and cant use. Some of it is definitely a gray area. I guess for me, to sort of sum up, I just try to make everything my own by editing, drawing, and/or tracing as much as possible with the goal of making it look good when it goes on a shirt.

 

Hope that somewhat answers your question and I would love to hear other people's opinions about it.