

Custom t-shirt site I've been working on the past few months. - teejayvanslyke
http://www.teemakers.com

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tiddchristopher
To improve the preview for Windows and Linux users, why don't you use Typekit
with Nimbus Sans (a rather accurate Helvetica clone)? Many designers and
typophiles won't trust a service that doesn't accurately render the type on a
typographic product. Also, I'd rather see the flat front of a shirt than the
current view when previewing how the text will be set.

~~~
teejayvanslyke
Awesome, thanks mate. Better typographic accuracy on non-Mac OSes is
definitely on the list.

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cpolis
A few notes:

\- The 'Get Started' button needs to be placed and styled more prominently -
it took me longer than it should have to find it.

\- Adding glyphs takes the user out of editing mode

\- I would have the Facebook and Twitter buttons on the main menu, i.e. don't
nest them. Having a few blue buttons on the otherwise black menu should
increase CTR for sharing

\- If possible, add more color options. I'm not sure what your printing setup
is, but I really didn't like the available colors. I prefer navy blue and
black shirts.

\- In the order form, all the options on dropdown menus are unreadable - they
are light grey on light grey

\- $29 for one single sided shirt? I wish I would have known before going
through the creation process!!! Can I buy in bulk for cheaper? Can I get
double sided printing?

Hope this helps.

~~~
teejayvanslyke
So helpful! Thank you.

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yesimahuman
First thoughts: make the landing page for this hacker news post the custom
editor, and put it right into "edit" mode. The landing page does need work,
and the right side box feels a bit wonky and the "get started" button doesn't
stand out at all.

The custom maker is your bread and butter and it's pretty sweet, so highlight
it. It's definitely faster than the one on Custom Ink! Though I ran into an
issue where my final shirt render had the image at the bottom of the shirt
rather than the top.

On the price: anyone who has made shirts before would think $29 is way too
much for a custom shirt (though I just realized it's AA). I can only suggest
searching for way to bring this down a bit.

Good luck, and congrats on launching! I know how gut wrenching it can be to
read HN comments after launching your first version.

~~~
teejayvanslyke
Hey mate, I took your advice and made the editor the main page with a call to
action linking to "Learn More". This puts the editor at the forefront. Thanks
for your feedback; it's very insightful!

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seanlinehan
The customizer is pretty sweet. The layout is nice and clean on that end. I
think the parallax effect is interesting, but as others have noted probably
won't convert as well as it could. You might want to try running some A/B
tests with some dramatically different layouts to test the whole spectrum.

Quick Note: You may want to redirect teemakers.com to www.teemakers.com, it
throws a security warning.

Good job though! Best of luck with the project!

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zoneinfinite
Hmm...I'm not really sure why I would use your service over the many other
tshirt printers online? E.g. BlueCotton charges $29 for one screen-printed
(not DTG) AA tee with multiple colors allowed, and the price drops
significantly if you order in bulk. I think you need a very strong
differentiating feature to compete with the big printers IMO.

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jandy
Static assets are taking a _very_ long time to load for me.

I noticed, for example, that the Select a Color image under Learn More is
1024x786 and weighing in at 590kb despite only being displayed at a size of
282x212. I'd recommend you do something about that.

~~~
teejayvanslyke
Thanks for the warning! I'm still ironing out performance. I'll take a look at
that one in particular right now.

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HardyLeung
You gotta fix your website (I'm using Chrome, and the background image took
forever to load, and for the longest time I was puzzled by the small window to
the right with some text). Not leaving a very good impression... Plus $29?

~~~
calbear81
It seems to be a bit cheaper than CustomInk with no quantity requirement but
once you go above 15-20 shirts, you can get volume discount through CustomInk.
Is the $29 for double-sided printing?

~~~
teejayvanslyke
We only allow single-side on the website, but we can definitely accommodate
most requests by hand. Contact us on Twitter: @teemakers

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austenallred
Constructive criticism: The first page looked like an opt-in or a launchrock
page. I almost left because I didn't want to sign up for anything. Looks cool,
though.

~~~
teejayvanslyke
Good call! Maybe increase the size of the call-to-action?

~~~
austenallred
At least. For me, a picture background offset with a dark background and light
text says "temporary landing page" - like your website hasn't been set up yet
(see <http://launchrock.com> or <http://grasswire.com> to see what I mean).

I would definitely center the "get started" and move it up to just under
"express yourself."

I would also change the messaging on the button so it's less ambiguous.
Instead of "get started" say something like "start designing." I'm just not
sure what "getting started" means. That should up your clickthrough rate and
lower your bounce rate.

</marketing>

------
flipstewart
while editing: <http://cl.ly/JyDj> while ordering: <http://cl.ly/JzFn>

Some kind of rendering issue in Safari on OS X ML.

I don't think the price is outrageous, but since some folks seem to think it
is, check out Tultex. Good quality of shirts with a similar fit to American
Apparel, and a good bit less expensive.

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habosa
Seems to be down. I'm interested to see when it is up though, we could use a
modern custom tshirt site done right.

~~~
teejayvanslyke
Oh yeah? That's strange, seems responsive to me. I'll look into it.

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yoseph
Works fine for me, but it would be great to be able to adjust the line height
of the text.

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davidcelis
Your SSL cert comes up as unverifiable on mobile Safari

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thiagoperes
No international shipping? WTF?

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ChrisNorstrom
(Add overflow-x:hidden; to the .splash .foreground .inner element to get rid
of the scrollbar on the bottom.)

It's creative and different but I'll bet you an arm and leg that if you made
the site more normal with a regular landing page you'd get higher conversion.
Putting a lot of information in a little tiny box that you have to scroll
through is just bad usability.

Why doesn't the custom t-shirt making just load on the landing page underneath
the call to action. Why hide it from users? If you have a lot to load just
ditch the full screen background image.

~~~
teejayvanslyke
You're right, the box is a bit constricting. I like the idea of dropping the
editor below the splash. Thanks man! I'll probably do that.

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paxunix
No white on black?!

~~~
teejayvanslyke
Right now, no :(

Unfortunately, our supplier uses a DTG printer which uses CMYK inks. So no
light on dark... at least not yet.

I was bummed too.

