Make your own vintage logo t-shirts

[Diablo de Tejas]

After a few weeks of experimenting, I have successfully created a brand new, vintage looking, Dallas Tornado t-shirt. I simply used that iron-on t-shirt paper that you can get at any computer store. I have to say, it looks great and holds up to washings. Now, if anyone is interested in makinf thier own, I have some advice. First off, you can use any file, just MAKE SURE YOU REVERSE THE IMAGE!!!! I ruined 3 sheets of paper by not doing that simple thing. Secondly, trim the paper to about a quarter inch from the image. Also, you can only print on white or light colored t-shirts. Ruined another one that way. Make sure your printer is set to print on transfer paper, otherwise, you won't get the best colors. I recommend HP brand paper. Also, wash your shirt inside out. You can dry them in a dryer, it actually makes them look better. Anyway, thought someone might be interested in that, I got alot of comments on my Tornado shirt. I also did a Farrah Fawcett in the red bikini one, as well as a couple of Kiss ones. Anyway, hope someone finds this interesting. LOL

[winters in buffalo]

Got pics?

[robbman21]

Well,I'm a little bit ahead of you I've been doing these for a couple of years now and back in August I saw these baseball style tees in the mall and figured I could make some for myself for almost nothing,so that's what I did.Here's a few pics....enjoy!

NOTE:These are all in my closet,they are not for sale.

EDIT:Gonna re-szie these pics cuz their too dang big!

[BaltimoreFan]

My cousin and I play an annual Thanksgiving Football Game. This year we are making Jerseys (just T-Shirts with iron-on pictures) I will post the pictures of the jerseys once I make them (which will be closer to Thanksgiving). Here is what I plan for mine to look like. Thanks for the warning about dark-colored shirts.

[robbman21]

Well actually,at Wal-Mart you can get transfers for dark-colored shirts.They are really expensive though,$10 for a package of 5 sheets,which comes down to $2 a sheet.One good thing about them though,is that you dont have to reverse the image before you apply them.Also,I dont use an iron,I use a proffesional heat-press which works much better.

[spyboy1]

I've been making my own vintage baseball and hockey shirts plus current American Le Mans Series racing shirts for several years now. I even recreated Lance Armstong's Yellow Jersey as a T-shirt for $80 less than a polyester Nike authentic, and mine has the Postal Service logos on it.

The race teams just love it when you show up wearing a shirt for their team when they don't even have any to sell themselves! What they don't know is I have five more in my backpack and as soon as I am out of sight, I change shirts and go visit the next team.

I always use the Epson transfer paper and have had great results with it. I once bought the Office Max brand because it was too cheap to pass up, but it really is not good and I doubt they will last very long, as the design is too brittle and cracking already, while the Epson paper drives the ink into the fabric for a much more permanent result.

My main advice is the first time or two you wash the shirt, take it out of the wash IMMEDIATELY after the machine stops and dry is as you nomally would. Leaving it in the wash while wet will result in the printed parts of the design bleeding into the parts of the shirt they come in contact with.

Also, white or light, light grey only. Don't try to do any colored shirts with the regular paper. It just won't work.

Also, the "Colored Shirt Paper" is just like wearing a bumper sticker on your clothes, as it's essentially a piece of plastic melted onto your shirt.

Robbman21, yours look great!

JeffB

[Diablo de Tejas]

Something else I thought of, let the shirt cool off before peeling off the back.

[CC97]

My one experiment with iron-ons was a disaster. I didn't trim around the image and it turned out terrible.

I plan on trying again one day, now that I know better.

[Discrim]

my one, and so far only, try with iron-ons was, like with Creamer, a disaster. my thing was that i forgot to wash before i put my shirt on

which is why it pays to read the instructions

[B-Rich]

Yeah, Diablo, like Robbman and Spyboy, I've been doing this for awhile.

My first foray was in 1997; I was going to a Halloween party whose theme was "Nostalgia", so I put together a Pistol Pete Maravich N.O. Jazz costume. The logo was tricky-- I essentially eye-balled a logo, and since the old Jazz logo is very geometric, it was pretty easy. It came out pretty well, so then I said "hey-- maybe I can do other old logos on t-shirts". My friend wanted an old ABA N.O. Buccaneers t-shirt, so I went for that one. I got the logo off the "Remember the ABA" website, but then came the problem-- logo size. The logo, when blown-up to iron-on size (almost full-page), became all pixelated. Hence, the old 'trace in a vector program" method of recreating the logo in a presentable fashion began. As most designers here will tell you, that is an exercise, with curves, layers, groupings, blocks, etc. The fun part is recreating (or creating, to be honest) block letters if you do not have the font. But, when you have the finished product on screen, and erase or cut the traced object, it's a great feeling of accomplishment.

Since then, I've made quite a few other ones:

WFL:

Southern California Sun

Birmingham Americans

Portland Storm

Memphis Southmen/Grizzlies

Jacksonville Sharks

Hawaiians

ABA:

New Orleans Buccaneers

San Diego Conquistadors (luckily, a friend of mine had the font)

Virginia Squires

Spirits of St. Louis

WHA:

Minnesota Fighting Saints

MISL:

Buffalo Stallions

I've also found out a few things in my travails:

(1) Iron-on size is limited to the page size, which is generally 8.5" X 11". That is okay for most block-type designs, but circle designs are rather small, limited to less than 8.5" in diameter. As Robbman has shown, you can put together one or more sheets for a full design (logo on one iron-on sheet, wordmark or numerals on a another, etc.)

(2) Fabric /material makes a difference-- most papers work better with a cotton-poly blend rather than 100% cotton, and will say so in their instructions. Both have been okay for me, but by all means pre-wash a new 100% cotton shirt before adding the iron-on. I've done a few sweatshirts, too, and the weave makes them a little less adhesive than a t-shirt. That's okay, because it gives kind of an "aged" look, like you found an old shirt from the 1970s or 60s.

(3) Spyboy is right-- the "dark" iron-ons are like the old 70s iron-ons-- rubberized material, rather than ink on to the fabric. They will last longer if you don't dry them, just air fluff for a 1/2 hour or so and hanger dry them. They will still last much less longer than the "white" iron-ons. By the way, I launder all my t-shirts and jerseys in that manner-- iron-ons, silk-screen, etc. They last much longer that way and have less wrinkles (I also don't fold them, keep them on a hanger 'till time to wear).

(4) As others have noted, not all papers are equal. Office Max and Office Depot are crap. Epson, Avery and HP are all good. Each paper has their own instructions, which you should read. The older ones all called for a "hot peel", while some now call for a "cool peel". On some, a hot peel is for a matte finish while a cool peel gives a gloss finish. I've found the gloss finish tends to crack earlier.

(5) As CC97 mentioned, you have to trim, otherwise you get a lot of white fabric with a weird, stiff feel. Leave about a 1/2 inch around the iron-on, and try to keep the edge trimmed in a rounded fashion (no sharp corners) to keep the iron-on from tearing when you peel it off. I've found if you leave a "tab" or "handle" on one corner, bent up and not ironed, that facilitates a good start to peeling.

(6) Ironing. The iron has to be HOT. Make sure it heats up for a while. The ironing surface should be flat, hard and even (stand-up ironing boards don't work). Apply quite a bit of pressure and iron EVENLY over the surface. (Too bad we don't all have heat presses like Robbman). And iron for the recommended amount of time, no less. Use a timer, if you must.

I'll find some photos tonight and post them tomorrow.

[paynomind]

You can generally take your stuff to a local shop and ask them to heat press it for you for a couple bucks. Most places will just do it for you if they arent busy.

Make sure guys, that if you do it yourself you DONT do it on a laquered table top. I did, and it impressed the fabric pattern in the top of my 1200 dining room table. My wife doesnt know how it happened, but is pissed. I dont plan to tell her. But I thoguht i'd pass that along to you guys. Use a kitchen counter, an unfinished wood table, or put a piece of partical board down on a table, then iron.

[spyboy1]

Make sure guys, that if you do it yourself you DONT do it on a laquered table top. I did, and it impressed the fabric pattern in the top of my 1200 dining room table. My wife doesnt know how it happened, but is pissed. I dont plan to tell her. But I thoguht i'd pass that along to you guys. Use a kitchen counter, an unfinished wood table, or put a piece of partical board down on a table, then iron.

Oh man, talk about the punishment not fitting the crime. That's harsh. One small mistake in judgement and you have to look at that forever. I hate that kind of stuff.

One suggestion for shirts to buy, I've had really good results with the Greatland and Cherokee brand t-shirts from Target. They are $6.99 and often go on sale for $4.99.

They have white of course, but also a color called "oatmeal". It's basically a light tan/beige version of a heather grey that looks yellowed from age. It works great with my vintage 1920's baseball designs.

[B-Rich]

As promised,a couple of pics of finished products.

My first foray, a Pistol Pete Jazz uniform costume from Halloween '97:

My daughter and her friend in Memphis Southmen/Grizzlies t-shirts I made for them, a few years back (they liked bears):

[BaltimoreFan]

That New Orleans Jazz jersey is really cool did you do that all yourself.

[TBGKon]

do the transfers for light colored t shirts work on athletic gray (like the Boston baseball shirts above) or do you need the color transfer???

[robbman21]

AstroBull...

Yes,the ones for the white-colored shirts are what I used for the BoSox tees above.Now I will say that I did them with a heat press which gets much hotter than an iron and pushes the transfer ink much deeper into the fabric,so I dont know how it would work with a conventional iron.Hope this info helps,and I have some new ones I'm going to post later...smaller pics though

[TBGKon]

where'd you get a heat press from?

[robbman21]

Actually I got really lucky.My cousin owns this region's athletic supply house(they do all the area schools and college's uniforms) and he had it not using it.He has one of those massive 24"x30" with the swing-around hot-plate...those are about $3,000.Anyway he had just bought this one I have-which is 14" across by 12" back-for around $400(I *think*).I bought it from him for $250 pretty much brand-new because he never used it.On the side label it has heatpress.com,which I checked out before replying and mine is the model JP14,which they have listed for $459.That's good if you are going to be using it a lot and making money off of what you are doing,and you can also find them on Ebay just like this for around $300.I need it because I do a lot of sub-contracting work for my cousin such as doing tackle-twill lettering and numbering for uniforms as well as customizing blank jerseys for friends or just anyone who knows I do it.Any more techincal questions anyone has I'll be glad to answer and if I cant I'm sure B Rich and Spyboy can.

[winters in buffalo]

Does it bother anyone else that we all flip out when someone boosts our stuff, yet we're pretty much sitting here talking about making unlicensed sports merchandise?

Don't get me wrong... this thread is loaded with plenty of good info on how to create great stuff with your own artwork. I'm just seeing plenty of examples of people doing otherwise.

[Discrim]

Does it bother anyone else that we all flip out when someone boosts our stuff, yet we're pretty much sitting here talking about making unlicensed sports merchandise?

Don't get me wrong... this thread is loaded with plenty of good info on how to create great stuff with your own artwork. I'm just seeing plenty of examples of people doing otherwise.

heh...and so we are...irony's a female dog