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Decorating Page 4

Misprint Monday: Print Problem Detective Work

Somebody showed me a shirt and asked what caused all sorts of problems with the print. What we see: Filled in negative space Registration problems including white underprint showing where it should not Blurry image “Bumpy” print, not smooth White ink turned pink   What is causing all these problems?   So what are the…

Cool Bella+Canvas Specialty Ink Videos

BELLA+CANVAS has started a youtube channel and just released videos on three of their garments being printed with specialty inks: triblend printed with adhesive and then foil applied,  slub being printed with metallic ink, and black heather being printed with reflective ink. They are simple and to the point and worth checking out. Look for them…

Decorating Advice (Finally…)

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…

Reflections at the End of the Trade Show Season (at the end of the retail era as we knew it…)

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…

Misprint Monday: Why is the Ink Cracking?

I got a request last week to help someone figure out why their ink cracked. They thought it was the shirts. I have never seen a shirt that would cause the ink to crack all by itself. There is always an ink solution for cracking. WHAT CAUSES INK TO CRACK? Primarily the cause of the ink cracking…

Misprint Monday – Another Kind of Ghost

I was asked to look at some shirts today that supposedly had “ghosting” issues. Ghosting we have covered before (see a prior ink kitchen.com article), it basically is a bleaching process when certain inks give off a gas when they are hot and stacked and a lighter “ghost” image appears on the shirt placed on top…

HIrsch to Distribute Brother DTG

Hirsch is now distributing Brother DTG machines, coast to coast. They already sell Kornit DTG machines, so they become the go-to place for high end fast pace DTG printing. There is no press release yet and the details will be coming in the coming weeks including if you stop by the HIrsch booth at Long…

How to Print Japanese Woodblock Prints

Yesterday I posted about a technique called Japanese woodblock printing. Here is a video that shows more on how the printing was done. It will make you appreciate how easy it is to screenprint. Here is a video about the printing with the woodblocks. And here is a video on how the carving of the…

Cubs and Indians Win! No, not a misprint Monday on that but…

The Cubs and Indians are in the World Series! Who would have thunk it? Besides my thinking that if the Cubs win the next round that Theo Epstein becomes a candidate for the Baseball Hall of Fame, I have a couple of other thoughts as a t-shirt printer. Clearly most of the t-shirt world is…

Misprint Monday? Just Say No!

When a customer says that a sample is approved but they want the print location to go up 1/4 inch, just say no. In fact, say “hell no!” There is a school of thought to say yes and they won’t notice, but I don’t agree.  I tell customers that we load carefully and we load…

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