These days it’s all about iThis and iThat, my thoughts, my opinions, my videos, my music. We are all individual, walking brands, so why not have our own T-shirt to convey our point of view?

A couple of storefront operations are now making it possible for anyone to become an instant T-shirt designer. Once relegated to warehouse spaces in industrial areas churning out hundreds of the same designs for the wholesale trade, T-shirt production has gone retail, suited to the individual who may want just one shirt to wear, a handful to give as gifts, or a batch of shirts to prevent individuals from getting lost at reunions.

At the T-Shirt Lab in Kalihi, siblings Lynn Shigemoto and Rod and Kelli Nakama will make as many shirts with your designs and logos as you desire. You can get started from the comfort of your home by logging on to shoptshirtlab.com and uploading your design, or if you don’t have a design, they can help you create one on a computer at their City Square business.

Downtown, Blank Canvas just opened its doors, offering browsers a choice of more than 1,100 graphic designs to place on a blank shirt, dress, tank top, hat, scarf or whatever. Although owner Daniel Ng doesn’t have the capacity to work with custom designs, he said that’s coming next year, when he also aims to start offering reasonably priced small production runs of less than 150 pieces.

For Ng, a graphic designer, opening the walk-in shop has lifted the burden of guilt he’s carried for at least eight years since he started producing silk-screened T-shirts for the wholesale trade.

"A lot of people would come in and ask me if I’m able to do one shirt, or five shirts, and that was almost impossible," he said. That would have involved the labor of creating screen images for each color, resulting in a single shirt that might cost $200 versus the lower per-piece cost of printing multiples.

"You’d have a one-of-a-kind, unique shirt but it’s a ridiculous amount and I didn’t want to charge that," he said.

Many times, the shirts were intended to be gifts or as an inside joke between friends, and he said he always felt bad about turning people away, feeling that he’d somehow dashed their dreams of becoming the next Rick Ralston. Now, he’s happy that technology has made it possible for him to offer new services to individuals.

Do-it-yourselfers long had the capability to put designs on a T-shirt with a laser printer, transfer paper and iron, but not everyone has the finances, technical ability or perseverance to make that happen.

"People want to make stuff but they don’t always have the opportunity to do that, so we make that happen," Ng said.

At Blank Canvas, going home with your own creation is as easy as picking your "canvas," choosing a design out of several big catalogs, adding custom lettering or foils, and waiting a few minutes. Then, voila! For about $20 to $22, you’ve got an original T-shirt. Shirts start at $8. Transfer images are $10 each, and there are additional charges for individual lettering and metallic foiling. The heat transfer method embeds oil-based Plastisol inks — the same used in silk-screening — into the fibers so the design will last for the life of the shirt, Ng said.

The design choices include comic-book and "Sesame Street" characters, tuxedo fronts, Warholian portraits, giant insects, perfume models, landmarks ranging from Route 66 signs to Wrigley Field, as well as such basic iconography as hearts, skulls and crosses. "Twilight" fans can tell the world "I (heart) Edward" or "I (heart) Jacob."

Although restraint is best in graphic design, "One guy put six designs on one shirt, putting them on the sleeves, the front and the back," said Sandy Ng, Daniel’s sister and business partner. "It was a little busy, but it looked OK."

Perhaps in the way that every parent thinks their baby is beautiful, she said, "When people see their shirts they’re really excited because they created it."

Last Friday, barber student Antonio Shinnery was at the shop working on his second shirt.

He said he doesn’t think he’ll stop there, having reaped the praise of First Friday celebrants who saw his first Megatron shirt and wanted to know where he got it.

"In the past few years, it’s been about brand names. But that gets old," Shinnery said. "Now it’s about being your own brand, individuality. When I’m working, it’s about which stylist do you want to see, and I want people to look at me and say, ‘I want him because he’s got style.’"

ALL THIS IS nothing new to Darrell Ching, owner of Novel-T World, who has been offering heat-transfer designs and customized lettering and numbering service for 29 years at Ward Warehouse in addition to carrying a vast inventory of graphic tees.

Designs include cartoon characters ranging from vintage Snoopy to today’s "Family Guy," plus anime and DC and Marvel heroes, automobiles and humorous slogans. The most popular design is "Angry Birds" because of its mass appeal, he said. "Kids play the game when they’re as young as 2 and it’s popular up to adults."

He said people are just beginning to catch on to the transfer images, but Novel-T World is best known for its customized numbering, a service popular with family and friends of athletes who want to show their support for a particular player.

For a while, he was offering custom-design services but found it too time-consuming to continue.

It’s something Daniel Ng would agree with, although he enjoys seeing others discover their inner artist at the expense of his own graphic ambitions. "I don’t have time to do my own personal thing because I’m working on other people’s projects, but eventually I want to hire other graphic artists so I can focus on my own projects," he said.