Shirt printing is finally back at PrintKEG. It has been quite a long journey reimplementing this service into our product line so today the PrintKEG team celebrates.

For awhile we used commercial transfers and were limited to white shirts. Our prices were very low, but the process was limited and quality was not to our satisfaction. Later we worked with a 3rd party vender, but that relationship soured for a number of reasons (mostly because of me) so we were quickly back to square one and using transfers again. Really, I feel like we should have just stopped offering shirts until we regrouped, but some customers really liked the transfers and were willing to pay a little more for it.

We bought a DTG machine. Our company procrastinated a long time before investing in DTG (direct-to-garment). Frankly, I would have purchased equipment sooner, but dropping tens of thousands of dollars isn’t easy for me (that’s a good thing), so we massively researched beforehand and that’s going to work in our favor since the technology has made significant progress the last couple years.

We tested for a long time. Honestly, this time period proved incredibly frustrating. We’ve dealt with faulty equipment. We’ve searched for the perfect t-shirt to print on. We’ve performed washing tests. This “development” phase consumed longer than I had hoped.

We mastered the process. The shirts we’ve been printing look beautiful. The shirts are high quality, tag-less and feel great when wearing them. The washability is wonderfully long lasting. We couldn’t be happier with the results, and I’m convinced customers will totally love our shirts.

What’s next? Currently, we are only offering 12 colors of adult and youth t-shirts. We will be adding toddler sizes, women’s tees, tank tops, v-necks and long sleeved shirts very soon. We’re also planning to add American Apparel as a featured brand. Launching these new garments might be slow because we want every single shirt that ships from PrintKEG to be the absolute best available.

Yep, our cheap postcards rock. Here are five excellent reasons why.

Many sizes. PrintKEG offers 10 useful sizes including standard sizes 4×6 and 5×7. Other cool sizes such as 4×3 have really increased in popularity since they’re super cheap and pocket sized.

Perfect card stocks. Artists, musicians and marketers can all agree our premium gloss and matte card stocks are perfect for almost any project. The ‘Gloss Card (110# Cover)’ is heavy, cheap and vibrant while the ‘Matte Card (100# Cover)’ is elegant, easy to write on and less shiny.

Always cheap. The prices on our website are everyday low prices. They’re not on sale (sometime we do have postcard sales though). Our cheap prices for postcards are consistently lower than everyone else so customers can rely on continuing savings at PrintKEG.

Custom sizes too. Yes! We do provide custom sizes for any postcard project. Please feel free to call (extension 1) or email our customer care any time. Please understand there may be limitations.

Design options. Most art we print is predesigned, but for customers who need design help, look no further! Our staff artists have mucho experience with creating postcards for almost any occasion.

We care. Our artists check and double-check all files before printing. We look out for weird margins, low resolution, insufficient bleed areas and much more through rigorous internal inspections. Every single PrintKEG staff member truly cares and monitors prints so they look great when delivered.

DTG has some interesting advantages over screen printing. The most notable is the ability to provide small orders of full color apparel printing inexpensively. That pretty much sums up our entire business model so it seems like a perfect fit for PrintKEG. Basically, projects requiring 100 shirts or less and a wide array of colors, DTG makes a lot of sense. A DTG machine works very similar to a wide format inkjet printer, which is what we use for large posters, so we have a fair amount of experience with this. Other DTG printers might gaff at that last statement, but that’s okay.

Needless to say, our entire team is beyond excited about revamping our shirt printing. This time, we will be offering a wider variety of shirt types for adults, kids and toddlers along with adding a fancy online shirt designer. More incredible features will also be available, and we’ll reveal more as we approach the relaunch.

The below photograph taken via Instagram (@printkeg) shows a few eager staff members peeking into the newly opened crate containing our DTG machine. They’re a bunch of nuts!

Order Messages/Notes

Once a customer reaches the cart, a new option under each line item is available. By checking the “Message/Notes” box, a text area becomes available allowing special notes, custom requirements or messages. This is a great time to inform us of deadlines, concerns or requirements without needing to email us later. It’s more organized and permanently saved while also facilitating a more responsive service by us.

Just be sure to hit “Save” okay?

Rush Turnaround

We get it. Sometimes a customer needs prints faster than our typical turnaround times allow. If all the prints in a shopping cart qualifies, a rush turnaround option will be available. By clicking “Apply to order” under the “Need It Faster?” heading, an order can be sent out a day sooner. One day may not sound very impressive, but combined with a faster shipping method, it can be very effective when trying to meet time sensitive deadlines.

Art Thumbnails

Inside our PrintKEG customer control panel, a thumbnail preview is now available for each order. This makes it easier to quickly identify orders, and quite honestly, just looks prettier. We should have implemented this much sooner.

These thumbnail previews are actually a first step towards greater features in-the-works including reorders and online proofing.

And finally…

For questions or concerns about these new features, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

First, I must start with this: Thank you! We depend on our customers and appreciate every single dollar, order and opportunity. Thanks to every one of you out there who is working with PrintKEG.

2012 was undoubtedly exciting for PrintKEG. We got better at what we do, and our company grew in every measurable way. Our poster printing reached new heights. We launched some awesome new products like die-cut stickers, vinyl banners and canvas prints.

Our story of converting a tiny print shop into an online print company is nothing short of remarkable. 2012 was huge, but I feel that 2013 will truly be our year of greatness. Here’s a few things we have planned.

Better T-Shirt Printing

We just placed a down payment on a new DTG machine. This direct-to-garment printing technology will greatly improve our current t-shirt printing process. By the end of the first quarter, we will re-introduce colored shirts for adults, youths and toddlers. We’ve been planning this move for quite a long time so it’s relieving to finally make this bold step into apparel printing.

Calendars

Our new calendar printing is beautiful and affordable. High quality calendars make wonderful marketing materials, and they can be thoughtful family gifts. The beautiful part about this service is how incredibly inexpensive we can offer them.

Website Improvements

Our development staff is working on some nice improvements to our print website, the members section and even our internal customer management tool. Gradually, these additions help us greatly improve service at every level as our small company scales to meet the needs of a growing customer base.

Canvas

Photos make wonderful gifts when printed on canvas. We offer gallery and museum wraps. Maybe the grandparents might love receiving an updated family photo. Look how cute my son is up there…how could you not send a photo like that to your parents?

Cards

Businesses and residential customers will discover that our holiday card printing is super cheap. Print your own custom graphic or choose one of our many free holiday card designs.

Photos

We offer many ridiculously cheap ways to print high quality photos that fit numerous frame sizes. On our singles page, you can print 8×10’s and 11×14’s. Our postcard printing includes 4×6’s and 5×7’s, and our large posters page hosts 16×20’s, 20×30’s and 18×24’s. Since our printing is photo quality, you’ll save a ton of money with PrintKEG.

Stickers

Our custom stickers can be utilized for almost anything. Stickers make awesome and inexpensive badges for office parties, name tags for gifts (as seen above) or as crafty additions to holiday promotional materials.

Friday, November 2, 2012 - Watching the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy made staff members of an East Coast online print company, PrintKEG.com, rally to find a way to help those in need by committing to donate a percentage of sales to the American Red Cross.

“Many of our customers reside from the Mid to North Atlantic coast and we feel the need to give back and do anything we can to help support the victims of this horrific storm,” stated PrintKEG co-founder Chris Mullen. “As a small business owner myself, I can’t image the devastation of having to close a business while infrastructure is repaired and hope that our Nation helps these people get back on their feet as quickly as possible.”

PrintKEG.com offers short-run printing solutions at cheap prices including flyers, posters, banners, booklets, holiday cards and much more. Proceeds from each sale through the end of November will go directly to the Red Cross.

“We hope that many businesses will consider doing the same and our thoughts are with the families in need,” added Mullen. “We also welcome people to email us if they have projects that involve fund-raising for Sandy victims at contact@printkeg.com.”

PrintKEG.com was founded in 2008 with the goal of becoming the premiere online destination for cheap online flyer printing. Since then, the company has been able to offer much more than flyers. PrintKEG’s unwavering focus on superior customer service has allowed the company to expand online offerings to include posters, postcards, banners and much more. PrintKEG.com offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee, The PrintKEG Promise.

Mr. Keg needed to be redesigned badly.

At the end of 2008, we created PrintKEG.com and wanted a fun mascot to represent us. Thus, Mr. Keg was born. Within a week, we quickly developed our first website and designed a clip-art-like mascot. At the time, I really liked that little guy. I look back now, and yes, he’s a bit lame, but something about him stays close to my heart.

Within a couple days of launching PrintKEG, it was obvious our website was going to be a hit, so while we began work on developing a new website, an intern helped us create Mr. Keg #2. Number Two has been with us since 2009, so we’ve wanted a refreshed design for quite some time now. Since 2009, we’ve grown tremendously, built our own e-commerce platform and created our own internal customer management system. We’ve really changed and matured since then, yet Mr. Keg was ignored.

As we continue to improve everything about our company including our website, internal processes and production equipment, we felt it quite appropriate, and rather symbolic, to finally implement a new design for Mr. Keg. We hired a fellow, and talented, Instagrammer (@genuinehaha), who was absolutely wonderful to work with. The new design is more upbeat, contemporary and fun! We hope you like him as much as we do.

Can you believe the holidays are almost here again?

Whether you’re sending holiday cards to family members or clients, PrintKEG is here for you. We’ve recently added 15 new designs to our already extensive variety of pre-designed Christmas and holiday greeting cards.

We also offer three incredible card stocks for holiday cards: ‘Glossy’, ‘Matte’ and ‘Gloss Front / Matte Back.’ All cards come with 70# white envelopes.

We’re proud to announce that PrintKEG now offers canvas printing. I was pleasantly surprised by the color richness of each stretched canvas print we made during development. Everything about them blew me away: The colors, the canvas thickness, amazing detail - everything. During testing, I thought we might be onto something big here. Now, I know we’re about to change the game.

Canvas printing is offered as single sheets (commonly referred to as rolled canvas) or stretched. They make wonderful custom gifts or home decor for any occasion. With our canvas printing, artists can be more profitable when selling their art while also providing amazing reproductions.