A few weeks ago, the most common question coming through customer messages started shifting. People weren't asking what they could put on a shirt anymore — they were asking where. Can I put something on the back? Can I do both sides? What if the front is subtle and the back is the loud one?
The honest answer, until now, was "front only." Not because the technology couldn't handle it — but because the original product flow was built around a single print location. Customers kept asking. So we built it.
Every custom t-shirt and premium custom t-shirt now supports three print location options: front, back, or both. The "both" option adds a small upcharge ($4.99), but unlocks a different kind of shirt entirely.
Why This Update Took Longer Than It Looks
Adding a second print location sounds trivial. In practice, it required rebuilding the design experience around a flexible print-area model — meaning every uploaded image, every AI style application, every text placement now has to know which side of the shirt it's living on.
That meant updating the live preview, the production specs, and the entire mockup engine. It's the kind of update that takes weeks of work to deliver something that looks like a single dropdown menu in the final product. Small interface, big plumbing.
What "Both Sides" Actually Unlocks
The interesting thing about front-and-back as an option isn't the obvious use case (a logo on the chest, a graphic on the back). It's the less-obvious ones — the design choices customers started making within hours of the feature going live.
A few patterns worth noting:
- The whisper-and-shout shirt. A small, subtle detail on the front. A bold statement, illustration, or full-back graphic on the back. The shirt reads quiet from the front and confident from behind.
- The narrative shirt. Front says one thing, back finishes the thought. A name on the front, a date on the back. A question on the front, an answer on the back. The shirt becomes a small two-act story.
- The team or event shirt. Personal name on the front, group identity on the back. Works for family reunions, bachelorette weekends, work retreats, anything where individual + collective both matter.
- The double-portrait shirt. Two photos — one stylized on the front, one on the back. A pet from two angles. Two kids. Before and after of a shared trip.
The common thread: the back of the shirt stops being wasted space and becomes a real design surface.
How the New Print Location Selector Works
The interface is intentionally simple. When designing on a custom t-shirt or custom premium t-shirt, the Print Location dropdown gives three options:
- Front only — included in the base price
- Back only — included in the base price
- Front & Back — adds $4.99
Pick the location, build the design, preview the result. Each side has its own design canvas, so you can apply different photos, different AI styles, or different text to each. Nothing carries over from one side to the other unless you want it to.
Curious how the design experience works? See how it works or jump straight into the custom t-shirt builder.
Where This Sits in the Bigger Picture
This update is part of a broader pattern. The original product was deliberately constrained — pick a design, add your words, front of shirt, done. That simplicity was the point. But as more customers started using the upload-and-style experience for more personal reasons (anniversaries, memorials, family moments), the limitations of "front only" started showing up in real ways.
Front, back, and both isn't a flashy update. It's a permission slip. The kind of feature that quietly expands what's possible without making a scene about it.
What's Next
The roadmap from here is built on the same principle: small, deliberate updates that respond to what customers are actually asking for. The "you asked, we built it" approach is going to keep showing up.
If there's something you've wished the design experience could do, the inbox is open. The best updates we've shipped so far all started as a customer message.
Final Thoughts
Front, back, or both is the kind of update that doesn't look like much in a screenshot but changes the design conversation underneath. The back of a shirt has always been the quiet half — useful for logos and event names, rarely treated as a real design surface. This update changes that.
The most interesting shirts coming through the system right now are the two-sided ones. Not because they're louder — but because they're saying two different things at once.
Ready to design something front-and-back? Try the custom t-shirt builder or the premium custom t-shirt builder, and use the new Print Location selector to pick your canvas.
In loving memory of my Dad. Happy birthday, 4/17. 💙
