Screen printed T-shirts for eBay’s Innovation Arts events

The brief

eBay asked for T-shirts carrying its logo on the sleeve, an ‘I BELIEVE’ tag on the front left breast and a slogan across the back, set in a typeface the customer chose. The garments were for a series of Innovation Arts events in different countries.

The hard part was not the print. It was that the offices in the USA, Germany and the UK all had to be happy with the finished garment before the full order went to press.

What we did

We produced samples first, using screen printing, and sent one to each of the three countries so every office could check and approve the garment in hand. We stayed in contact throughout; once the samples were signed off, the rest of the order went to print.

The final garments were black T-shirts with a one-colour white screen print. Once finished they were dispatched straight to eBay on a fast delivery service so everything was in place before the events.

Why screen printing

A single-colour design repeated across a run is exactly where screen printing earns its keep: one screen, a consistent print on every shirt, and a sample that looks the same as the last garment off the run.

The client

eBay rewrote what an auction was and then grew past it: a global commerce and payments platform where people shop, sell and give, old or new, used or one of a kind. Sellers get the platform and the support to grow, with eBay working alongside them rather than against them.

Merchandise for a company like that has to look like it belongs to the brand rather than to whoever printed it.