We were looking into ordering some Crea swag, shopping around a bit online and strongly considering a couple local Renton custom t-shirt businesses. But after all the research on vinyl press vs dye sublimation vs screen printing, our bias toward making kicked in.
Of course there are a lot of reasons to let the professionals print shirts, but we decided that a small investment in being able to make print our own custom apparel meant the entire makerspace community would be able to do the same once we launch. So we prioritized a setup that would be easy and flexible for the community to tinker with. So Crea will have equipment for dye sublimation.
Given this is beyond the planned launch scope of Crea, our initial sublimation setup is very entry-level. We're converting an Epson Ecotank printer to use sublimation dye, and we're grabbing a cheap heat press. It's probably not the setup you'll want to start your own custom t-shirt printing business, but we think it will enable a lot of community creativity.
And if you want one of these Crea shirts or hoodies, we'll show you how to make it yourself!
