The Ink Kitchen

Danny Gruninger, of Denver Print House, discusses the joys and headaches of water-based print production…

Ah, Pantone, how I despise you and let me count the ways: The color guide books are expensive as hell considering how many books they sell and the fact that in our industry and others I presume they also get licensing fees for inks that match their Pantone colors. The cost means that not only…

Dead Man’s Curve by Jan and Dean recorded in 1963 It only has a little bit to do with today’s post. Its a brain trick I use to remember to check any type that is written on a curve. There is something about type in an arch that makes it harder to see errors, so…

Let’s start with the conclusion, which is that simple prints done well sell best. I coordinate the merchandise for Farm Aid (farmaid.org) every year, Farm Aid works to support family farmers and they put on a yearly concert that features Willie Nelson, Neil Young, Dave Matthews, John Mellencamp and other artists who this year included…

This “expectation vs. reality” example shows that this “simple” and “clever” concept is actually not so simple to achieve (and maybe not that clever?) We get a ton of requests to print black ink on a black shirt.  To achieve the effect, the following considerations must be taken into account: First, and most importantly, what…

Recently I wrote some thoughts here about rampant copyright and trademark violation, which is aided and abetted by lax policies of on-line services. It is easier to put up some BS product blatantly stealing the artwork and design of others than it is to get them to stop. This week I’m in the middle of…

My pal Andy MacDougall wrote a great article in the recent SCREENPRINTING magazine.Basically there are jerks taking everyone’s images off the internet and DTG printing them on shirts and stuff and selling what they do not own. The artist gets screwed three ways to Sunday, no money, their art is out there in a crappy low…

I attend the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival annually and so do almost 500,000 other people. It is interesting to stand back and see what folks in the crowd of all ages are wearing to a casual t-shirt type event, and always interesting to see what the Jazz Fest merch looks like. On both…

Comfort Colors just sent out an email blast promoting their decorating tips. You can read about many different ways to make your comfort colors shirts look better. This seems to be part of a wave of garment companies looking to help their customers proactively with tips on decoration, rather than waiting for decorators to run…

I woke up to a Business Insider article about the decline of retail stores.    They report that a third of malls are in danger of closing, and that visits to malls decreased 50% from 2010 to 2013. Noted at our industry shows, American Apparel will be closing their 110 retail locations and Abercrombie closing…