Anton Sport Founder Named Entrepreneur of the Week

John Anton was that guy everybody knew in college as the t-shirt peddler. After college and a brief stint in the corporate world, he went back to t-shirts in 2003 with the development of his e-commerce site DesignAShirt.com. Now he sees $6 million in yearly revenues and was recognized recently as Inc.com’s Entrepreneur of the Week. “Wearing a shirt and tie and selling chemicals for a Fortune 500 was not for me so I bought some equipment with my credit cards and created Anton Sports in my garage,” said Anton, referring to his already-successful screen-printing and embroidery business…. read more

Case Study on DesignAShirt.com and John Anton

TEMPE, AZ–(Marketwire – May 31, 2007) – Summertime is family reunion season, and DesignAShirt.com, the leading provider of custom t-shirts, is offering helpful suggestions for designing the perfect family reunion t-shirt to remember the timeless memories created at reunions this year. Most family reunions are held between June and September because the weather is better and summer is the best and easiest time for families to travel for vacation. Some families plan their reunions up to two years in advance to allow attendees to set aside vacation time and make travel plans. Because family reunions require so much planning, planners need to make sure they’re memorable for years to come. Nothing helps to remember an event better than a custom t-shirt. …read more.

DesignAShirt.com Launches Just One Custom T-Shirt Design With No Minimum Order Requirements

TEMPE, AZ–(Marketwire – December 11, 2008) – Looking for the perfect gift this holiday season? Why not make that special someone their own customized t-shirt? Now with DesignAShirt.com’s “Just One” innovative digital printing technology, customers can design individualized custom t-shirts with no minimum order. “In the past t-shirt customization was limited by minimum order requirements,” said John Anton, president of DesignAShirt.com. “With our new digital printing technology, customers can now order any custom t-shirt with no minimum order. That means you can print a gift, print a statement, print a photo — anything you want on a t-shirt — with no bulk quantity requirements.” With “Just One,” DesignAShirt.com can print any design on any custom t-shirt with any color for one low price. That means unlimited colors on both light and dark apparel, with no need to pay per color anymore. …read more

My space, my sale

When John Anton established a Web page for his virtual T-shirt business DesignAShirt.com on MySpace and Craigslist, bands and clients around the world instantly became fashion designers. He credits the free online campaign for generating more than $10,000 in revenue and helping him sell upward of 1,000 shirts in less than a year from his north Tempe store, Anton Sports. “We’ve had a phenomenal response from both,” said Anton, who opened his Valley business 21 years ago and debuted the Web-based custom shirt venture in 2003. Anton is among a mass of online marketers turning to social networks such as MySpace and Facebook to hype their companies or products in what is expected to be a record year in ad spending for that medium, according to eMarketer Inc., a New York-based provider of e-business research and statistics. …read more.

War feelings don’t fit neatly on T-shirts

Of all the great words penned about war, there may be no greater crystallization of man’s mind-set than the poem written by an Arizonan while watching the opening of this country’s 1991 military campaign against Iraq. It read, in its entirety: “Kick their (expletive) and take their gas.” The verse was penned by John Anton, who owns a T-shirt company in Tempe. “A few of us were sitting around having some beers,” he says, describing his inspiration. A few minutes later, literary lightning struck again. Another T-shirt was born. “I’d walk a mile to smoke a camel,” went the caption. Above it was a cartoon of a man in flowing robes atop a camel, encircled entirely within the crosshairs of a rifle scope. ….read more.