While everyone was celebrating the win and preparing the parade route, The TShirt Guys were busy at work (at 9pm mind you) prepping inks, laying out shirts, going over the print order, and getting ready to print over 7,000 NBA Championship t-shirts to be placed in stores around the Metroplex the following day. Here a few pictures of our amazing production crew in action:

Here we go!

First shirt done printing

Here is the shirt on the press

Here are the shirts coming out of the dryer

And here is the final product with the official NBA sticker!

7,773 shirts, over 12 hours of non-stop work, Sonic breakfast sandwiches and burritos, 2 gallons of sweet tea, and 6 guys later…now that was an awesome day! Hopefully with the quality of product we put out we might get some more professional teams calling our name! But until then, check your local stores for these shirts and if you get one, snap a picture of you wearing it and send it to us on our Facebook page!

As we took on the new identity of “The TShirt Guys” it became apparent that we needed an actual “TShirt Guy.” So, like any good art project/t-shirt concept, everything starts with a first drawing. Whether it’s on a napkin, a sketch pad, or even painted on a canvas, all conceptual ideas start with the first sketch.

As we continued to fine tune our TShirt Guy’s head, it was time to give him a body.

After some initial sketches and ideas, this is the body we landed on. Here in the Art Department of TheTShirtGuys, it doesn’t matter what you bring in or what ideas you have, we can make it work and make it look amazing.

Once the drawing was finished and we liked what we had, we scanned it in and brought the drawing into Illustrator to begin the “inking” process. Inking is when you bring in your pencil/pen drawing and begin re-drawing it in the computer in order to manipulate it for screen printing.

Here’s what it looks like after we have “inked” the hair of The TShirt Guy. The next few images are more of the process of turning the sketch into a digital drawing.

Now that we have our TShirt Guy digitally created, our next process will be to print him on some t-shirts. On our next Behind-The-Scenes blog series post, we will take you through the process of how to take digital art and print it on a t-shirt. Stay tuned!

64000 Gildan SoftStyle T-Shirt

0202 Tultex Fine Jersey T-Shirt

3001C Canvas Greenwich T-Shirt/Bella 6000 Ladies Crewneck Jersey T-Shirt

2456 American Apparel V-Neck

That quote couldn’t better describe what has happened to Valley View Productions over the course of this last year. We have had lots of changes going on around here: from our building being painted, to installing signage, to updating our stock ink colors, experimenting with new printing styles and effects, and of course, completely revamping our website.

New Website

If you are a regular customer of ours, then welcome to version 3.0 of the “little t-shirt shop in Grapevine” that you’ve come to know and love. As you can see we have revamped our website and simplified everything down to better serve our customers in their journey of creating a t-shirt. We know that you can go anywhere to get a t-shirt made, and in fact, will find cheaper companies and services than ours…but we believe that you won’t find a better quality product than what we have to offer. Simply put: we aren’t going to be the cheapest, but we strive to be the best!

What’s the one thing that separates us from the rest of the competition? It’s not our prices, it’s not the kind of shirts we have, it’s not the smell of our ink, and it’s not the location of our shop. What we believe makes us stand out from the rest is our completely custom artwork!

Valley View is joining the world of blogging! Well, at least we’re going to try to. In this space you will see periodic articles that deal with, but are not limited to: artwork tutorials, screen printing tutorials, behind-the-scenes photos and videos of the shop, product/printing specials, and anything else we think you’d like to see.

Building Makeover

Valley View has existed as a company for more than 11 years and in that time, the building never changed. Oh sure, there were a little modifications here and there, but for the most part it was always this shabby little building that no one knew existed in the heart of Grapevine. Many customers would tell us that they have been driving by here forever and never knew what we did. At the beginning of the summer of this year, Valley View got a face lift and some much needed signage!

Here's how our building looked for almost 10 years of its existence.

After new paint, a power wash of our building, and signage, here's how it looks today!

It’s a whole new year for Valley View Productions and a whole new purpose, so continue to check back here to see what we’re up to and what’s in store for the future of The T-Shirt Guys!