Today we skip our usual “Misprint Monday” post and instead opt for “MAGIC Monday”. No, this has nothing to do with David Copperfield or Criss Angel. I’m talking about MAGIC Market Week in Las Vegas. MAGIC is the gathering place for the apparel industry and I’ll be there representing our side of the industry on…
It used to amaze me how little attention printers paid to the all important squeegee. Today it seems that more printers “get it”. The use of triple durometer squeegee is commonplace in print shops as are squeegee sharpeners and I even hear printers talking about replacing squeegee blades on a regular basis (what a concept!).…
We’re expanding Web Wednesdays to cover not just great websites, but also great web technologies and tools that are useful to apparel decorators. One of my favorite tools online is What The Font by My Fonts. Whether you are involved in the design process or not, as an apparel decorator you will inevitably find your self…
I spent last Friday with the folks at Farm Fresh Clothing Co. in Sebastopol, CA. More than a print shop, Farm Fresh is a custom clothing company. They have complete control over the design of their apparel blanks to hand-drawn graphics to printing technique. The quality style, design, and branding, established by Owner/Founder Matt Morgan,…
Printers have a bad habit of forgetting to heat their pallets before starting a print run. The underbase does not gel sufficiently and ink sticks to the back of the subsequent screens, chaos ensues. Start wiping screens. The result is that the first half dozen or more prints lack opacity and are grossly undersaturated, enough…
I spent some time with the folks at Farm Fresh Clothing Co. in Sebastopol, CA yesterday. Great people, great printing, great ping-pong. Stay tuned for the full shop tour next week…
We printed this multicolor discharge print on the inside of the garment through a low mesh count and with a tremendous amount of squeegee pressure. As a result the ink saturates the substrate and bleeds clear through to the other side. What an easy way to take a clean spot color print and create a…
Our friends at jakprints maintain a website that is the envy of apparel decorators everywhere. From humble beginnings (Jacob Edwards, Co-Founder, and I had fun one evening going back in time with the Wayback Machine), jakprints.com has developed into their primary customer interface. The site is filled with digestible information and interactive tools all presented in…
We recently had an order returned due to placement issues. The printing was “crooked and off-center”. Upon review of the returned goods we were able to ascertain the real issue… Torquing occurs in the manufacturing process and is most pronounced on non-tubular garments constructed from lightweight, stretchy fabrics (in this case a tri-blend). The difficulty…
Perhaps it’s the tasteful and appropriate use of discharge inks, maybe it’s the organic cotton blank by our friends at Econscious, or it could just be that the Pogues are such a great band. I don’t know, but sometimes it all just comes together and you end up with the perfect print.
