The Ink Kitchen created a Shop Talk area at 2019 ISS Long Beach. A highlight was to have professionals working in the field come in and share their vision and their expertise. Many of them had never spoken in public before, so this was fresh and fun and down to earth.  We’ll be sharing more of what they said in coming weeks, but here’s a thought or two from each of them…

• Jacob Edwards and Mike Mance – Nobody gives a damn how you decorate a garment any more, get ready to sell the decoration and then figure out the best way to get it on the shirt.
• Dov Charney – The topic we gave him on “ethical production” is stupid and irrelevant. The important thing is transparency, how and where are you doing what you do and how do you treat your people.  Oh, and by the way, thick heavyweight shirts are going to come back into style.
• Michelle Moxley – With passion about what you do, you can create water-based special effect prints that are truly mind blowing.
• Maria Vega – She showed us fabrics she prints that previously only existed in our nightmares. Whether you are trying to prevent dye migration or print them with discharge ink, you better have trusted vendors and you better rely on them.
• Brett Bowden  and Rick Roth – You better train your customer service people really well or you will be screwed. Don’t take in work you can’t handle. Don’t send out subpar work or the customer will get out a ruler and you will be doomed.
• KC Hruby – Scour the web for inspiration to use to design shirts for your customers, and truly use it for inspiration, don’t try to copy it.
• Bill Garvin – Don’t touch your tension knobs, maintain your bobbins. Maintain your bobbins!
• Gina Watson – Sometimes you can’t improve the existing technology past a certain point, like metal snaps on an infant bodysuit. Instead you have to come up with something entirely new like using plastic snap tape from the hospital gown industry.
• Marcus Davis – Yarn comes in different sizes, and the higher the number, the thinner the yarn, so 18 singles is thicker than 30 singles. Thinner usually then makes a softer shirt, but is more expensive to make it because of more extensive processing required.
• Eric and Val Solomon – There are lots of water-based inks that can work in your shop, but you better concentrate on the chemistry and you better control your process right down to open doors in your shop and when you take a lunch break.
• Jason Murphy – If you think there are a crazy array of transfers available now, hold on because that world is expanding like crazy. Get a heat press with bottom heat, you are going to need it for thicker transfers and also for fabrics that scorch.
• Justin Lawrence – Figure out what your opportunities are and what you are good at and go for it. When you get lucky ride that wave but keep your eyes wide open to the fact it won’t last.
• Brandon Lennert – Printing water-based inks including discharge is possible if you organize yourself to do it and have the right emulsions and other products to work with it.
• Megan Spires – Premium fashion garments are not only here to stay, they are taking over the industry. Don’t fear this trend, you can make better margins, but you have to sell your customers on them.
• Michelle Moxley (talk two) – Hybrid printing of screenprint/digital combinations is here to stay. It makes possible individual variations of prints, full color prints in small quantities, it has speed advantages, and allows for digital prints with special inks added.

More Shoptalk to come at ISS Atlantic City and ISS Fort Worth.  We’ll Keep you posted.