A few refections as the busy trade show season is mostly over.
I think the biggest trends of the past ten years have been digital printing and environmental concerns. Developments in the environmental realm have slowed but still do continue and will not stop, we have to find increasingly safe and sustainable ways to do our work . Digital printing continues to innovate and grow. I think the next round of developments in our industry are going to be in the area of systems. You may be able to print one shirt at a time quickly, however you will eventually find a bottleneck in the transfer of information. What print, what garment, and where is it going? How are those payments going to be processed? The rise of companies like Jakprints that process thousands of orders accurately is the future and it is here now. Much of that happens on the back end, which is not a particularly photogenic area, so I don’t have many photos in what follows.
With that commentary, I’ll now get into what I do have photos of. Thanks to Ashley Marie Myers and Pam Ikegami who took quite a few of these photos.
Tom and I were at a number of shows and we are grateful to all of you that came by and talked shop with us.When Tom and I didn’t know something, there was the trusty 8 Ball to always give us the answer.
One F’n Know-It-All pretty much uses all Roller Frames. The other one uses rigid from GSF. Whatever you do, don’t forget the basics. It is called “SCREEN” printing so have good screens.
KIWO makes great emulsion and that red emulsion bucket is their new Ulano cool idea, a bucket that actually pours. However, their real strength is awesome people working there.Highlight on the innovative Ulano Emulsion “Tea Pot” Design for Pouring EmulsionDave Dennings is one of the many folks at KIWO that know what they are talking about. Great company.Some happy dude that stopped by our booth and grabbed our guide to the show. Check out our “Who We Work with and Why” section. If we don’t already use their products we do NOT allow anyone to sponsor The Ink KitchenPierre from theshirtboard.com was a guest Know-It-All. He is one great dude.Richard Greaves spent a great deal of time at our booths at all the shows and imparted wit and wisdom. Another great guy that we are lucky to know.Kevin T. stopped by. One great thing about shows is that you get to talk shop with your buddies.One of the few intriguing new things I saw at the shows was this “point source” LED exposure lamp from SAATI that both saves energy and gives more consistent exposures. And saves money on bulbs in the long run. I’m getting one.
Ben Petsy is one of several awesome dudes and dudettes working at Saati. They are the real deal.Ross Balfour – one smart dude in the SAATI organization. Fun guy as well.
You know you think you know the basics but it always is worth learning more. Garrett and Bob Kaule and I got some great information from Greg Jensen at the SAATI booth. Anyone that thinks that they can’t always be making their processes more ecological, more efficient, and better quality is a fool. There is always something more to learn from talking to someone like Greg at SAATI.
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