Picking a good t-shirt (marketing swag) provider in Seattle

Yep — TeachStreet is officially becoming huge — we officially have crossed the chasm and need to get some marketing swag (I thought it was spelled schwag, but Urban Dictionary corrected me ).  What is swag, you ask?

From Urban Dictionary, swag is defined as “stuff we all get” — I prefer to think of it as wearable awesomeness — yes, t-shirts, hats, iPod sleeves, USB mem sticks, mugs, and that bastion of giveaways, notepads (I think I still have my Seagate notebad from Web 2.0 Expo last year somewhere…)

Since we didn’t know where to go to find great swag, I reached out to the Seattle Tech Startups list a few weeks ago, and the response was loud and clear.  Not only did I get some great suggestions, but I also found out from Alyssa and others that there’s a clear distinction between t-shirts for men and women… who knew?!?

In any case, we still haven’t made a choice — in fact, we had to make an emergency run to Kinko’s for t-shirts last week (no, we don’t recommend them… they didn’t even warrant a link!), but they did provide 24-hour turnaround   Pretty awesome, eh?

With no further ado, here’s the organized feedback/suggestions from local Seattle entrepreneurs:

• Jon Rydeen (reco’d by David Berkey) at Peak Promotions: pptees@hotmail.com or (206) 406-3975 – have had him do shirts for a Rotary runs, embroider shirts, sweaters & hats for a bank, M/F sizes and styles, etc. He’s more hands on, which provides more guidance to better decisions (not wasting money).
• Advantage Precision Graphics (reco’d by Todd Sawicki’s significant other… and experienced schwag-preparer ) – 425-497-1451 great t-shirt printer in redmond — cost is so dependent on the # of colors – 2 vs 4 could mean 50 cents to 2 dollars just in amortized print costs plus the cost of the tshirt itself.
• Designer Greek (reco’d by Sam Bell) – http://www.designergreek.com – Even though the website is targeted towards Greek organizations, the owner, Stefany, lives in Greenlake and works with businesses as well.  She recommends Bella for women and Canvas for men. She can also detail out the different printing processes.  All in all, she creates t-shirts that people will choose to wear more often, increasing your marketing investment.
• Branded Solutions (reco’d by Cliff Rudolph) — in Redmond (owned by Edgar Martinez) – www.branded-solutions.com – They do great work and are very, very service oriented — can do it very quickly.  If you don’t see something you like on their website they specialize in custom work.
• Bravo (reco’d by Matt Scoble – Experticity) – http://www.bravobranding.com/
• My buddies at JibJab bought through LimikSolutions — got Hanes for $3.50 each + prep/delivery

Tips/Pointers:

• If you are ordering shirts for women – either stay away from American Apparel or only order men’s sizes. We used American Apparel at Google and the size 2 women had to wear large! (Not a very “feel-good” schwag response!)
• always would get 7 mil cotton t’s, because they held up better than Hanes’ 5 mil shirts.
• Bella’s baby-doll Ts provides the perfect amount of formfitting & stretchiness for woman-oriented schwag:
• If you go to http://blog.bitpusher.com/2008/05/02/linuxfest-2008-recap/#more-59 you’ll find a graph Michael Halligan put together for appropriate distribution of shirt sizes & quantities
• As for caps, they tend to stay around a long time, unless they’re totally dorky. T-shirts are the least expensive