Why a car in an environmental post? We rented this Audi A1 to make our factory tours while at the FESPA in Germany. Great sporty car, no problem doing 110 MPH or more on the Autobahn. However, its diesel engine also had this baby getting almost 60 miles per gallon. It also has innovative environmental features such…
This sign for the Fair Wear Foundation was outside a t-shirt shop selling pretty typical tourist shirts in Heidelberg Germany. I asked the owner about the Fair Trade shirts and whether any consumers there cared about that. She looked at me like I was crazy and said, “yes, of course.” I think that in the…
A few notes while passing through the Amsterdam airport and looking at shirts. I don’t know about the rest of you in the business but before I can even think of how clever (or not) a shirt might be, my eyes automatically scan it for being out of register, dye migration, off the mark right…
In Heidelberg it was interesting to see folks (Volk) selling shirts. Most of them in this case were using plotters and heat transfer machines. Also typically they were paranoid about us photographing their designs, like I Heart Heidelberg was f’n original or something. There was an emphasis on Fair Trade (Fair Wear) and organic cotton…
The FESPA digital show in Munich was not only a great exposition on what is going on in printing, but it also shows the potential for trade shows themselves to be so much more than what we typically see in the US of A. This is not exactly what we see when we go for…
Improvements to digital printing on fabric, improvements to transfers for textile, improvements to sublimation on fabric, and yes even improvements for screenprinting on textiles. In many ways it is an exciting time to be a decorator of garments because so many techniques are possible and they all seem to be improving. The look on this…
Printing on garments has really come a long way and nowhere is that more apparent than in the winning prints for the FESPA Awards 2014. Once printers in the States ruled the world, but no longer. The winning prints at FESPA are incredible and they come from shops in Russia and Poland. From super fine…
A few notes from FESPA Digital in Munich, Germany: Progressive companies in the USA are now part of a global system, they are here in Munich seeing what is going on. Environmentalism is not dead, the rest of the world is passing the USA by. Not so many heads in the sand here (or is…
Sometimes printing on polyester is a wonderful thing. We used a Rutland Barrier Base and Super Polywhite on this red 100% polyester hockey jersey. Red poly turning white ink to pink is the worst, so we took care on this one. Besides using the right inks we were careful not to overflash and we turned…
Any experienced printer will have at some time used the wrong ink, or printed on a fabric that perhaps caught one by surprise. It is a sickening feeling to see your beautiful bright white print slowly turning pink with nothing to be done about it. Dye migration is a terrible thing. Today’s Misprint Monday print…
