We recently installed press #5 at Motion Textile. I’ve affectionately nicknamed this 8-color MHM X-Type Plus “The Little Guy” (maybe I was thinking of that Portlandia sketch?). A few thoughts on going small with this new install: Sleeves The majority of sleeve prints that we run are very simple (2-4 spot color) prints with a flash or two. We…
This is the end of an era, or end of another chapter anyway. The New Buffalo Shirt Factory was the gold standard for shirt printing, specializing in highly detailed sports and rock images on black shirts. The owner Jon Weiss had a license plate that said “King of Black.” Jon sold to Gildan a couple…
We’ve seen a sharp increase in demand for reflective printing in the last couple of years. When it comes to reflective decoration options abound. Certain products have been developed for fashion where the effect is primarily, for lack of a better term, a gimmick to products for function, like safety. We’ve found that when reflectivity is paramount nothing…
Being a contract printer (ASI supplier) for ASI distributors and other promotional product “professionals” is a love/hate relationship if ever there was one. When the relationship goes well it is a great cooperative arrangement and the distributor (in their white hat of course emblazoned with their clever name and logo) is our financier, our great…
I’ll do a full post on this project at a later date, but I thought it worth mentioning that these screens, squeegees, and inks ain’t just for printing t-shirts…
Here is my third post, some final refections as the busy trade show season is mostly over. The biggest trends of the past ten years have been related to digital printing and to concerns about the effects of printing and garments on the environment. Developments in the environmental realm seem to have slowed down, but still…
Here is my second post, some refections as the busy trade show season is mostly over. The biggest trends of the past ten years have been related to digital printing and to concerns about the effects of printing and garments on the environment. Developments in the environmental realm seem to have slowed down, but still do…
After the winter of our discontent, well at least in our Northern climes, Spring is (almost) here. Thoughts turn to verse: You can’t see Canada across lake Erie, but you know it’s there. It’s the same with spring. You have to have faith, especially in Cleveland. ~Paul Fleischman People ask me what I do in…
I was recently talking to friend in the industry about offering custom printing vs. contract printing vs. doing both. My thoughts on this matter have been consistent for the past ten years: choose one or the other, not both. I do not recommend offering both for specific reasons, i.e: the inevitable conflicts of interest that arise when you…
Fibrillation is defined as “the rapid, irregular, and unsynchronized contraction of the muscle fibers of the heart.” I’m talking about that type of fibrillation in this post, but many a screenprinter has felt like they are going to have a heart attack over the type of fibrillation that happens to t-shirts. Fibrillation in screenprinting is when…
