“Digitizing” the presses has been on my projects list for years now. It’s quite the undertaking but once completed will allow us to digitally display the full and accurate range of on-press screen and platen movement in relation to each other and in relation to screen profile and artboard (these components we have already digitized). This is a big deal for us…
While at the Atlantic City ISS show at the Ink Kitchen booth we met some folks from Spectrum Works. They are a decorating shop dedicated to helping folks with autism help themselves. They seemed like great folks doing some good work. You can find out more about them at their website http://spectrumworks.org/ In their own words:…
HanesBrands is purchasing Knights Apparel, a company which mostly serves the college bookstore market. It sounds like a good deal for HanesBrands and I can’t see how it will have any effect on the average screen printer or embroidery company. You can read about it in the Wall Street Journal or here is the HanesBrands press release…
If you’re like me, you dread the thought of the slow season. For most printers the first quarter of the year is painfully slow. Your hard earned gains from the prior year seem to evaporate and you hope you can hang in there to see the busy season return. You are dying to get to the…
It isn’t often that our first commercial screenprinting jobs are documented. Usually we get into this business in a sort sideways move. We help somebody out or make shirts for ourselves and never really think it will turn into a business. Somehow lo and behold eventually we end up finding ourselves in the business. I…
My friend Gaylen has a phrase that I go to at least a couple times a week. He says, “pigs get fed and hogs get slaughtered.” That is some good homespun wisdom. If you want customers long term, you don’t want to overcharge them. Somebody gives you fifty percent of your business and if you…
10% That could be the article, just 10%. In thirty years of printing, once I saw 30% of a crowd at an event or congress buy shirts. That was in a perfect confluence of great positive energy and a fantastic design. Mostly I see 5 to 10% no matter how good the design is.…
We’ve been figuratively and literally snowed in for the past week. Some jackasses hacked into our site and we have had a devil of a time getting back on track. The problem is stemming from our web hosting provider, not something targeting us specifically. Hey, it’s nice that it isn’t personal, but frustrating because we can’t…
Thousands of shirts sit in New England warehouses. Seattle’s Kearse catches a ridiculous pass that should have fallen to the ground. Printers in New England groan, remembering the insane catch (and last of very few catches he ever made) by David Tyree in 2008 which robbed the Patriots of the Super Bowl that year and…
Nine recent questions I have received whether on forums, calls, or at shows: Q: What is the standard over/under on good shirts? A: You are free to make up whatever you want, but we usually tell people 1.5% per location is the industry standard. 300 shirts printed two sides on customer supplied goods means 9 shirts…
