The Chicago Tribune wrote last week about $180K worth of phony Blackhawks hockey being seized by law enforcement under an effort with the oh so tricky “codename” Operation Team Player. This pales when one considers that the NHL’s big crackdown “Operation Red Zone” in 2013 netted $13.6 million in fake jerseys. Bootlegging is big business and…
There is that day when your contact at a big customer tells you that they are leaving. When I was younger my heart would stop, I would get depressed, etc. No longer. Over the years I have found that if you follow up and you have been doing a good job that the person that…
We send a computer mock up like The Pawtucket Film Festival example below to every single customer. What we want back (if all information is correct) is the word, “Approved.” Not “it looks good to me,” “wonderful,” “great,” “ok,” “thank you so much,” or any other number of niceties that might make you feel good…
We had a cool time with some fellow printers and a few chill vendors this week. A good time was had by all at our Ink Kitchen “East Coast Scrubdown and BBQ.” Three customers of mine hooked us up big time. Best Q around from Blue Ribbon BBQ, best brews around with Summer Ale and…
We printed some sample Nano shirts for Hanes and we at one point discussed some clever packaging ideas, but I forgot about all that until today when a can of Nano arrived. They are nice soft shirts that actually fit more than teenagers and I enjoyed receiving the clever packaging that promotes these good shirts.…
We often get requests to analyze shirts for manufacturers. I can tell you that some folks like Hanes and SanMar actually do care about you printers out there and try to make sure their products can be decorated. They don’t always fully succeed but they are definitely trying hard and often with great results. Other…
That shirt was made a few years ago by Georgia Tech. It is called the smart shirt, and is for use on the battlefield to diagnose where a wound occurred. It was the start of what will be coming to the marketplace sooner than we could have imagined, computerized clothing. Google is ramping up their…
Besides seeing rocking shows by the Pixies, TV on the Radio, St. Vincent and Ben Harper at Boston Calling this weekend, we also saw how interested people still are in screenprinting. They were printing pennants on site, and a long line indicated just how interested folks were in screenprinting. Most of our thoughts right now…
This week The New York Times covered on the front page the relatively recent phenomenon of sports teams giving everybody that comes in the door a free t-shirt of the same color. It basically puts the whole crowd in uniform. The Winnipeg Jets were the first team to do this type of thing when 20 years…
I cannot understand how somebody could be so stupid as to put out a shirt to the general public as the Under Amour company did this week (see below.) Call a spade a spade, this was a moronic move. Under Armour removed the shirt, but somehow I wish we could sentence those responsible to a…
