Next Level 3600: How It Prints, and Who Shouldn't Order It

If you have ordered printed shirts from us, there is a good chance they were Next Level 3600s. It is the blank I reach for more than any other, and it is the one sitting in the middle of most of the quotes I write.

Here is why, and then here is who should order something else instead, because that matters more than another page telling you the shirt is soft.

Why I reach for it

The first reason is the color range. There are about 46 colors in this style. When somebody comes in with a logo that has to sit on a specific shade, or a school that needs their exact blue, or a band that wants six colorways of the same design, the odds are good that the 3600 has it. That sounds like a small thing until you have spent a week trying to match a color in a style that comes in nine.

The rest of it is that the shirt holds up. The construction is durable, it wears well, it washes well, and it prints very well. I have been printing this style for years and it does not give me trouble.

The spec, in one block

Everything below this line is the part any catalog will tell you, so it is here once and then I will move on.

• 4.3 oz, 100% combed ring-spun cotton
• Heather Grey is the exception, a 90/10 cotton and poly blend
• About 46 colors
• Side seamed, tear-away label, 1x1 rib knit collar
• Extended sizes available, with the widest size range on the core colors

How it actually prints

This is the part a catalog cannot tell you.

It is a ring-spun cotton, so the fiber sitting on the surface of the shirt is very low compared to a blended tee. The practical effect is that the print sits flatter on it. Ink lands on a smooth surface instead of bridging across raised fiber, and you see that in the edges of small type and fine linework.

Beyond that, honestly, nothing changes. It goes on the press like anything else and comes off clean. That is not a boring answer, it is the answer. A blank that never makes us do anything special is a blank I can quote confidently for a rush job.

If you want the rest of how a job moves through our shop, screens through cure, that is on how screen printing works.

Heather Grey, the one blend color

Every color in this style is 100% cotton except Heather Grey, which has polyester in it. Polyester is where dye migration comes from: the heat that cures the ink can pull dye out of the fabric and tint the print.

I have never seen it happen on a 3600. We print that heather regularly and it behaves. I am telling you this because it is the one thing I would check on this style if I were you, and the answer is that it has not been a problem here.

If you want to know more about dye migration generally, and why it matters more on some garments than others, it is covered on DTF vs screen printing.

Fit and sizing

This shirt runs more fitted. It is not a boxy tee and it is not pretending to be one.

That is the single most useful thing to know before you order, because it is the thing people get wrong. If your group is used to a heavier classic-cut shirt, the 3600 will feel different on them, and that is worth saying out loud before you commit to a size run rather than after the boxes arrive.

On the wash: in my experience it moves less than you would expect for a cotton tee. I would not build a size run around getting shrinkage back.

On the big sizes: Next Level does charge more from 2XL up on this style. That is the garment manufacturer's upcharge and not our printing, which is worth understanding because it means you can look it up in the catalog before you commit to a size breakdown. It steps up again with each size above 2XL and flattens out at the very top of the range. Some brands do this and some do not, so if your group skews toward extended sizes it is worth comparing blanks before you pick one.

Who should order something else

Two kinds of customer should not order this shirt, and they are worth naming.

If you want a boxier, looser cut, look at Gildan. Their tees are cut straighter through the body, and if that shape is what your people expect, the 3600 is going to feel narrow to them no matter how nice the fabric is.

If you want real weight, look at Comfort Colors, which we order constantly, or at the Los Angeles Apparel 1801GD garment dye, which is a genuinely heavy shirt and the nicer end of that category. The 3600 is a 4.3 oz tee. It is light on purpose, and no amount of liking it will turn it into a heavyweight.

Neither of those is a hard sell away from the 3600. They are just different shirts for different people, and I would rather you got the right one than the one I print most.

The rest of what we stock is on the garments page, and we can quote almost anything out of the major wholesale catalogs even if it is not listed there. If you already have your own blanks, that is covered on customer-supplied garments.

Getting some printed

Tell us what you want on it and how many, and we will quote it. There is no minimum, so a dozen is a real order.

Get a quote on Next Level 3600s

If you want to know what moves the price before you ask, and what our turnaround actually looks like, that is all on what to expect.