The Show Floor There are so many good reasons to attend a trade-show: Learning, networking, socializing, talking shop, happy-hours, fancy dinners, parties, bars, etc. Ok, ok, let’s not forget why we are there in the first place: the show floor. Companies expend tremendous resources to exhibit at a trade-show. It’s not just the cost of…
Our partner in this endeavor we call theInkKitchen.com pulled out all the stops on Friday and we had the Lucky 13 Bash. Tom Davenport’s Motion Textile was transformed into a graduate program in advanced screen printing, a beautiful cool club for the evening, a gathering of many good and knowledgeable folks in our industry to…
You can check out a state of the art screenprinting shop tomorrow in Sacramento, my buddy Tom Davenport’s shop is pretty awesome. You can see a video of it here, but actually it is more impressive in real life. In person will be best, but we’ll also have photos and videos the next few days,…
In a post on some forum on the internet this week somebody was saying that our industry, in particular our trade shows, are not fun. Fair enough. Sometimes these things have been boring. We at the Ink Kitchen have been working the past few years to shake it up. I think we fell from lofty…
Having talked shop with quite a few people at ISS Long Beach I have detected quite a bit of wishful thinking going on out there about screens. With some shops there seems to be a bit of a move away from Newman Roller Frames and in my opinion most of that thinking is not thorough…
This question comes up often with screenprinters: why can we not hold detail? The answer is an idea similar to the art department concept of problems with source artwork where we say “garbage in, garbage out.” We are now are transferring that idea to print production. Basically, if you have a crappy stencil you have no chance…
Question: Our printing doesn’t seem to be getting better, what are the best ways to go about improving our printing abilities? Answer: My two cents? Stop being penny wise and pound foolish. Saving twenty dollars and buying a gallon of inexpensive but inferior emulsion is a terrible idea. Inferior emulsions don’t have the resolution…
Often people ask when I see them at shows, “What’s New?” I usually point out that you have to check out the solid steady vendors who often don’t have anything new. Screenprinting is called that for a reason, you need screens! If you are going with rigid frames, the solid solid rigid frame company is…
Nine recent questions I have received whether on forums, calls, or at shows: Q: What is the standard over/under on good shirts? A: You are free to make up whatever you want, but we usually tell people 1.5% per location is the industry standard. 300 shirts printed two sides on customer supplied goods means 9 shirts…
This is the 4th in our series on what to check out at the Long Beach ISS show. Of course be sure to come by our Ink Kitchen “Know-It-All” booth on the far left wall. “Far left” and “off the wall”, that’s us. It is booth #157. We’ll also be tweeting and posting up a…
