Mike T is not just a great artist, he has done some of the most exemplary illustrations for t-shirts that I have ever seen. This print of Biggie is also one of our best screenprints, but it all started with great artwork. The piece is so good that a marketing company put this in Digital…
When our buddy Mark Bailey of Sanmar first mentioned that they would be releasing a new performance fabric known as Posicharge which would eliminate the need for low-bleed inks, I was dubious. A couple of weeks ago we had a chance to work with this product in production. IT WORKS! Sanmar produced a nice little video…
I think that “distressed” printing can no longer be considered a fad. When something sticks long enough it becomes a standard. Upon thinking about this I tried to remember the first time I came across a distressed print. I remember Gap and Old Navy doing a lot in the mid to late ’90’s, but I’m…
Print Resurfacing is one of my favorite techniques. A variety of effects can be achieved through the simple process of heat pressing a printed image with a piece of specialty paper, ie: matte or gloss, between the print surface and the heat platten. We have used this technique successfully over the years to mimic litho-transfer,…
If you’re getting into printing for retail brands you’ll no doubt find that finishing and packaging requirements are part of the game. This of course includes fold and poly-bag service. As a standard, brands and retail outlets will require that poly-bags are printed with an eight-language warning label. It’s one small…
Many years ago this design came our way as part of a program we are running for a retail line. We told the customer that this was a print more suitable for a belt printer as the graphic ran from the garment body and over the sleeve with a bleed of the edge of the…
At last year’s ISS Atlantic City show I was introduced to Jimmy and Drew from American Icon Screen printing in Newburgh NY. It was great meeting Jimmy, clearly a good dude, and a fellow printer who clearly has a real passion for what he does. The night before Thanksgiving Jimmy was run over by at least…
Congratulations to the Canadian hockey team for winning the gold medal with a great final game against Sweden. I’m sure many screenprinters can relate to the way my mind works. I love hockey and I’m enjoying the game, but I’m looking and it appears on the screen that possibly the dye of the red Canadian…
TBT Hail Thursday! Old post on depth in screenprinting. Digital is all well and good, but screen printing is deep man. Screen printing has depth. This is a great shirt to illustrate the point. Notice the grey area, that is curable base, no pigment. You can also use very low pigment percentages up to 15%…
A few comments of my own after Tom’s longer post on squeegees yesterday. – Squeegees are probably the most underrated item in almost every shop I have visited. You can overcomes many problems in a shop, but it is almost impossible to do good printing with bad squeegees. – Don’t trust the company that makes…
