Have you ever sat alone, shirtless, waiting in the cold for a day that never comes? I’ve been there too. That is, until I found Redbubble, the ultimate source for artist-made t-shirts. Thousands of artists have uploaded their wares, making unique clothing, stickers, phone cases and other items a simple click away. But how good are Redbubble shirts? Read on for my Redbubble review.
How Good Is The Print On A Redbubble Shirt?
Redbubble offers many different shirt options, including tri-blend, tank top, v neck and women’s shirts. I purchased the typical “unisex t-shirt”.
Unlike the traditional four color screen print process, Redbubble utilizes “direct-to-garment” printing. As the name suggests, this method involves a high-quality inkjet printer that’s able to print complex, multicolored images directly onto fabric. As a test run, I bought one of my Vladimir Putin shirts. Redbubble shirts ship in a branded bag like the one below:
Fresh out of the bag the shirt is kind of stinky and smells like ink. They also have a tiny clothes pin with a cloth thank you note attached to the shirt.
With this level of concern for branding, I get the idea that Redbubble is quite a bit more serious about their products than many competing services.
The colors on the shirt are fairly true to my original design and the direct-to-garment printing method handles the high levels of detail/color quite well. The ink is noticeably thinner than on a traditional screen printed shirt, but after several washes it’s held up well.
How Well Do Redbubble Shirts Fit?
Redbubble shirts are made from a slightly thinner/softer material than your average t shirt (I consider Gildan shirts the typical shirt measuring stick). They fit roughly the same as you would expect.
I’m an athletic guy and enjoy tight-fitting clothing so I can show off the muscles. I’m also about 5’9″ and roughly 170 lbs at the moment. I wear a small and it fits perfectly. After several washes I didn’t notice much in the way of shrinkage, so choose whatever size you typically wear when ordering a shirt and you’ll probably be fine.
Conclusion
- Redbubble offers hundreds of thousands of unique designs from independent artists
- Each purchase supports the artist directly through Redbubble’s commission system
- The print is good quality and will hold up to multiple washings
- There are multiple size/clothing type options as well as many other items (stickers, phone cases, pillows)
- Email support is available and typically responds within a day or two
Overall, Redbubble shirts aren’t amazing, but they definitely aren’t garbage. I’d recommend Redbubble for interesting, unique t-shirt designs. Redbubble gets 3.5 out of 5 clip art stars:
Click here to check out my work on Redbubble or browse thousands of other designers.
Don’t forget to hire me for custom graphic design work
I ordered an expedited shipping for a large order from Redbubble. Total came out to be $428. I paid $98 for delivery. They emailed me saying that order is ready to be shipped 3 days prior to delivery date. Then they simply never brought my package to UPS.
My order was for an event and it needed to be delivered on a specific date. When one day went by and UPS had no updates for me I panicked and tried contacting Redbubble. They have no customer service phone line. Emailed them- never heard back. Then was forced to have twitter conversation with them- had to deal with incredibly rude person who basically told me that They DO NOT CARE and it is MY FAULT FOR ORDERING WITH THEM.
Disappointed is not the word I would use for this experience. If they did not care for a semi-large order what makes you think they’ll treat your single T order with any respect. Stay Away from Redbubble!
Wut
Do you realize that for $550 you could’ve paid a local print shop to create a higher-quality custom four color process shirt, gotten twice the amount of shirts, picked the order up locally and avoided shipping, and still paid less?
Do you think if I order a hoodie from redbubble it would be good quality? A lot of the reviews seem fake and I’m worried I will be disappointed when my hoodie will come through the mail after I order it.
My bad I never check my web site these days. I can’t say on their hoodies. Probably a coin toss. I made one for my niece once and the print was way small, but that’s a kids size
To reply to the guy that asked about their hoodie quality: I bought a hoodie from Redbubble abut 3 years ago. The hoodie has held up very well, the print has degraded maybe to 8/10s (if 10/10 is brand new). Overall I am happy with it and do plan on getting some TShirts from them; (which is how I ended up here, I’m trying to see how their shirt sizes run).
Thanks for the input! PS No Use For A Name is great live, seen ’em a couple times
Shittiest quality t-shirts and graphic adhesion I’ve ever purchased. $78 order of what originally were nice graphics and appreciation of each artist’s work but after 10-12 wears and washings these are all absolute junk. Having many, many t-shirts that are well over the twenty year mark and still fairly pristine I’m appalled at Red Bubble’s junk .
Thats surprising. I haven’t bought a RedBubble shirt in several years but they used to be pretty good quality. Not as good as screen printing but I had the shirt in the photo for a good year before the print was significantly deteriorating. This article is pretty old, so maybe they lost some quality control