Frequently asked questions

What's your minimum?

Our minimum for printing shirts is 48 pieces for 1 color designs, or 100 pieces for multiple color work.

For hoodies, our minimum is 24 pieces.

How do people pay?

Once we come up with a price and you’re ready to go, we will send you an invoice via email that you can pay securely online with a credit card. If you don’t want to pay online, you can call in your credit card information (paying online is usually easiest for everyone.)

We can also take PayPal, as well as check, although waiting for a check to come and clear will delay the order. Money order by mail would work too! Note that we require payment before starting, so that makes working with Purchase Orders difficult.

How do I submit artwork?

Just email it to info@vacord.com and we’ll check it out. If your file is too big to email to us, just use something like Dropbox and email us the link.

Can I submit my own shirts?

Maybe, and we will need to know all the details before we can agree to print them, to make sure they are of a quality and type that we can use.

We prefer to provide the shirts and hoodies, and with the amount of blank items that we buy annually, we get just about the best pricing possible, so it’s better economically for us to provide the blanks.

How much is shipping?

We now do free ground shipping for all orders in United States, usually with UPS.

What shirts are best to print on?

For discharge ink, it’s best to use 100% cotton shirts. For traditional ink, we can print on 50/50 blends and 80/20 blend hoodies and whatnot. On light color shirts, we can use waterbased (very soft) ink on all blends.

Where are you located?

We’re in Camden, New Jersey now, across the bridge from Philadelphia. You don’t have to pick up at the shop though. We’re happy to ship your shirts free to you in Philly or anywhere in the continental USA.

Can I come over?

Sure! Get in touch with the shop first to coordinate a time, but yes we'd love to have you check out the shop, meet the staff and talk about your order in person.

Can I call you to talk about my order?

Yes please! 1-888-787-4587, preferably between 9am and 6pm Monday through Friday.

What's your email address?

What is discharge ink?

Discharge is a type of waterbased ink that removes the shirt’s color. It’s sort of like bleaching, except it doesn’t hurt the shirt. You can add pigments to it too, so that you can print colors with it. Discharge creates an awesome, super soft print with vibrant colors. Very cool stuff. And they tend to sell better than traditional ink, if you’re interested in reselling the shirts we print for you.

How much does printing cost?

It varies so much. It depends on how many you’re ordering and what the printing is like (just one color on the front only, versus two color front and three color back, etc) and what kind of shirt it is. There is no standard price. Get in touch with us for a custom price!

Can I get just one?

No, sorry, you can't order just one item printed. Screen printing involves a ton of set up work, and that is why we have minimums. If you need just a couple, look into "DTG Printing."

How do I get pricing?

Use the quote request page to send us your information and we’ll get back to you quickly with a price! Giving quotes via email is much better, but we can also do quotes on the phone, or at least take your information and research your needs and email you back with a price.

What kind of artwork do you need?

It needs to be crisp and clean, at actual print size at 300dpi resolution, if you’re submitting a photoshop or PNG or JPG file. In other words, real big and not blurry or messy.

We prefer vector format, like Illustrator or EPS or PDF files. That’s ideal for screen printing, because it has crisp edges, and we need a sharp edge when we make the stencil in the screen.

Can you hold and ship my shirts for me?

Yes! We have added a fulfillment program.

What are your set up fees?

We do not charge any screen making fees or ink mixing fees for our retail customers, which saves people a lot of extra cost. We don’t want to nickel and dime customers like other screen printing shops do.

The only fee we currently charge is to change ink colors during the printing. For example, if you wanted 50 white shirts, and 25 have the design in red ink and 25 have it in blue ink, we have to stop the run and then start over. Ink changes are $20 per change.

Where can I see all the styles you offer?

Check out 4logowearables.com and imprintablecatalog.com to see most of the styles that we can get. Find something you like? Awesome! Tell us the style code and color and we can check it out.

Why don't you like printing for clothing lines?

We don't want to support clothing lines because they never go anywhere for the people who start them. We've seen so many people sink various amounts of money into clothing lines, and they never ever work out for them. It's a very very hard business, and we'd rather you do something else with your life.

Can you burn a screen for me?

No, sorry, that is not a service we offer.

What is waterbased ink?

Waterbased is a type of ink that has pigment embedded into a water solution. Like discharge, it’s nice because it gives a very soft prints. It’s eco-friendly and a good solution when you need to print colors on very light or white shirts or hoodies.

How long does an order take?

After you give your payment for your order, we can then order the blank shirts or hoodies or whatever we need, and those generally arrive in 1 or 2 business days, though some items, especially some American Apparel items, can take a week to get to us. Generally, orders are shipped out in one to two weeks, although it may take longer for very large, complicated orders, or orders requiring blank items that take a while to get to us.

Do you have a specific style that I want?

If you have something specific in mind, we can probably get it! Please visit 4logowearables.com and Independent Trading Co to see more styles that we can provide. Or just ask us, and we can probably find it for you.

Why don't you show pricing on the site?

Because pricing is so complicated. It's based on what kind of garment, how many colors and locations to print, and the quantity printed at a time.

It doesn't take long to come up with a quote for your project, so just email us at info@vacord.com, use the quote form on the pricing page, or call us at 1-888-787-4587 for a quick quote!

How do I prep artwork?

There's no real prep needed, as we will do the work ourselves to get your artwork separated and ready to be turned into the films we use to make screens.

Just make sure your artwork is either vector like Illustrator or EPS (with text outlined so that we don't need any font files) or 300dpi at your actual print size and crisp and clean if it's raster format like Photoshop or JPG or PNG.

What if my artwork sucks?

Don’t worry about it. Just send it to us and we can clean it up for free or cheap.

What if I don't even have artwork?

No problem! Tell us your ideas and we can create it for you. We have several different graphic designers on staff.

Do you ship internationally?

We really try not to. It can turn into a nightmare quickly, and tariffs are complicated and expensive. We have had international orders shipped back to us from Europe even when everything was properly documented.

Do you print bandanas?

Yes we do! In the past, they didn't work well with our presses, but now it's something we can offer, so get in touch if you need custom printed bandanas.

How long have you been doing this?

Stuart started Vacord in a basement in 2006 and has grown from there to a shop with twelve or more full time staff persons. Adam has been doing it even longer. It’s still fun.

What is traditional ink?

Traditional ink would be plastisol ink, which is a plastic-based ink. It’s what most printers use, and we still use it for some stuff, like athletic jerseys and hoodies. It can be printed very heavy, but you can also print it lighter and softer, which is what we do.

Have your own questions?

We want to hear your questions!

Start a conversation

Let us know what questions you may have, or what your project would be like.

Not sure of all your answers? That's fine. You don't have to have everything figured out to get the conversation started. We can guide you to the best results.

Other ways to talk about your project

Email us at info@vacord.com

Call 888-787-4587

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