Systems and methods for ordering and fluid transfer printing a custom-printed item

A method of custom-printing an item comprising:

• accepting customer request data for a workpiece and customer request data for a graphic design to cover at least a portion of the workpiece;
• accepting workpiece identifier data from a workpiece database based on the customer request data for a workpiece;
• accepting print design data from a print design database based on the customer request data for a graphic design;
• associating the print design data with the workpiece identifier data;
• associating a unique identifier for each graphic design with a corresponding counterpart identifier for each workpiece to create a plurality of graphic design/workpiece pairs, wherein the unique identifier associating step comprises writing a unique identifier from the graphic design to one or more RFID tags associated with the corresponding workpiece for each graphic design/workpiece pair;
• printing the print design data onto a hydrofilm portion;
• placing the hydrofilm portion onto a fluid surface in a dip tank;
• applying an activator to the hydrofilm portion to yield an activated hydrofilm portion;
• and
• dipping the workpiece into the dip tank, whereby the activated hydrofilm portion is bonded to the workpiece as a result of the dipping.