Uniqlo’s UTme! allows customers to design their own unique customised T-shirts. Options for customisation range from pre-designed stickers by local artists, popular cartoon characters like Winnie the Pooh, images, texts and drawings.
My personal favourite option is getting my own design printed as a tshirt as a gift as a fun gift for friends. I’ve used Uniqlo’s UTme! to design multiple funny friendship shirts and they make pretty decent gifts.
If you’re interested in getting your own custom shirt design printed at Uniqlo, you can find all the details I wish I knew earlier 🙂
UTme! Is only available at the following outlets:
UNIQLO Bugis+
- 201 Victoria Street, #01-15 #02-15/16/17, Bugis+, Singapore 188067
UNIQLO Orchard Central Global Flagship Store
- 181 Orchard Road, #01-01 to 04/23-25, Orchard Central, Singapore 238896
I’ve only visited UTme! at the Orchard Central outlet so the information shared will be based on that.
Guidelines for Customised Designs
Uniqlo has a specific set of guidelines for designing your own shirt and not any/every design is allowed to be printed. To avoid disappointment, make sure your designs adheres to the following guidelines:
Don’t include unauthorised contents that infringe on third party rights
- Example: Names, portraits, photographs, and/ or other contents of celebrities, entertainers, famous characters, companies or brands
- Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)
Don’t include inappropriate immoral content:
- Indecent or vulgar language or content
- Content that causes disgust, discomfort, or anxiety
- Content that could tarnish the reputation or cause other harm to a third party
- Antisocial content
- Political content
Design File Format Recommendation
UTme! does not support large file sizes. Supported file formats are only .png and .jpeg
If you use Photoshop or Illustrator to create a tshirt design of high resolution, your resulting image file might be too large (elaborated further in the next section).
For designs where you want a transparent background, make sure your file is saved in .png to get the desired effect.
Process for Making Your Own Shirt at Uniqlo
Once you have your design ready and are at the store, this will be the process to get your shirt printed at the DIY tablets.
Step 1: Email Your Design
Before you can add the design to your shirt, you need to first email your design to the designated email.
This is why larger file sizes are not supported as your email will not send if the image is too big. Before heading to the store, make sure you have a copy of the image on your phone with file size <1MB to be safe.
Step 2: Find a Tablet, Get Staff Assistance
In order to access your custom design in Uniqlo’s design tablet, you’ll need to call the staff to get the image transferred over from email to their tablet.
Unfortunately, this is a very inefficient process. Had an experience where I called the staff for assistance but several of us were kept waiting for 15-30 minutes before helping us to get our designs into the tablet. Recommend to avoid going during peak hour, but this really depends on luck.
Step 3: Adjust Position of Design / Add Drawings (optional)
Once you have your image added, you can position how big you’d like the design and where you want it to be placed.
*Note that placement for UTme! printing is limited to the front of the shirt only.
There are options to add additional drawings but personally I create my designs ready to print so I never used their drawing functions before.
Step 4: Call Staff, Purchase White T-Shirt
Once you’re happy with your desired placement, call the staff to get assistance.
You will need to let them know your desired shirt size. UTme! only allows printing on their white T-shirts. They are 100% cotton white short sleeve T-shirts.
For adults, it costs $29.90 and is available in sizes XS, S, M, L and XL
For kids, it costs $19.90 and is available in sizes 110, 120, 130, 140, 150 and 160
After the staff passes you the shirt, you can proceed to make payment at the checkout counter in Uniqlo, before returning to the UTme! section to pass the shirt back to the staff
Step 5: Wait & Collect Your Uniqlo Custom Shirt
Waiting time will depend on how busy they are that day. I’ve had times where my shirt was printed right away and other times where they told me waiting time was 1 hour. Best to be prepared to wait just in case. Perhaps plan it near a meal time where you can go grab a bite while waiting.
Quality of Uniqlo UTme! Personalised Printed Shirt
The shirt is printed using inkjet printing technology. It is not the sticky kind that peels off, which is great as I hate those sticky print kinds.
However, I do notice some colour difference between my design and when printed on the shirt. But to be honest, the colour difference doesn’t make the design look bad so i’m not bothered by it.
The quality of the shirt is pretty good and has survived many washes and multiple wears from my friends without the print fading off (i’ve made 4 shirts across 2 years for various friends).
Perfect for Gifting
I really love the convenience of making a custom shirt at Uniqlo as with normal shirt printing there usually is a minimum order quantity. At Uniqlo, you can just print one which makes it great for novelty gifting. It is also relatively affordable considering you can add a custom design.
I love customised gifts because it adds personal touch and humour, like customised blankets.
If you’re thinking of getting a customised shirt at Uniqlo for a friend, I hope this information was useful for you 🙂
