Ink Kitchen went old school into the future at the Impressions Expo in Atlantic City. We did some great live poster printing, in keeping with analog hand-done artwork being more and more appreciated in a world filling up with digital work. Recent shows indicate how our industry can go into a community and make a…
Heat applied transfer technology has made great strides in the past few years. Now there’s almost nothing that can’t be decorated with a transfer. We gathered a panel of experts- Josh Ellsworth from Stahls ; Jody Mazade from Howard Custom Transfers ; Nathan Anderson from FM Expressions ; and Mark Bailey from SanMar– to share their insights about how transfers…
A visit to Ikonics (Chromaline) illustrates some trends in the screenprinting world: 1. The screenprinting world is splitting into high tech and automation versus DIY, side hustle, small crafty shops. 2. The screenprinting world is consolidating. Kornit bought Tesoma. Alpha bought NES, Broder and other distributors. Gildan bought Comfort Colors, American Apparel and Alstyle.…
Tax season is coming up soon and there’s a lot of misleading business advice flying around on social media, so we asked Tyrone Gregory @TheSelfEmployedTaxGuy and Stan Banks @StanBanks to join us in a Shop Talk about Protecting Your Profits. Nothing is certain but death and taxes, so keep your books in order and make…
We gathered some of the most knowledgable water-based screen printers in the country for this Shop Talk on printing with water-based inks. Val and Eric Solomon of Night Owls, Danny Gruninger of DG Consulting and Tony Palmer of PalmPrint Screen Printing Consulting shared their expertise with the crowd at Impressions Expo Long Beach and our…
If you run Shopify stores as part of your business, you’ll probably see a new feature the next time you create a product. “Autowrite” will generate product descriptions for you based on a list of features and key words. It will even adjust the tone of your prose. I gave it a try with a…
I had a great tour of Los Angeles Apparel in Downtown Los Angeles. With barely any notice they gave me the run of the place and let me talk to anyone. Their claims of making all their shirts and treating their workers with respect are ABSOLUTELY true. Even after many years in a somewhat volatile…
Is AI a tool or a threat to a creative business? It depends on how you chose to look at it. In this Shop Talk we had Michelle Moxley, Innovation Director at @MRPrintingEquipment , and Dave Gardner from @GildanCorp discussing the pros and cons of using AI in your art workflow. This talk was based on Michelle’s…
Don’t worry if you missed some of the Shop Talks at the recent Impressions Expo in Long Beach. We’ll have every talk up on our YouTube channel in the coming weeks. First up is Rick’s talk with Dov Charney. Unfiltered as always, Dov talked to us about garment trends, imprintable t-shirt history, how to get…
I saw many industry friends at Long Beach, and we had a great discussion about Ai in the Ink Kitchen. I want to thank you so much for your participation. It was great to interact with everyone again finally. I appreciate all the input, feedback, and ideas. How often can we experience something terrifying, interesting,…
