Screen printing product and technical news from Stanley's, Canada.

Clean routinely—it makes business sense.

A textile print shop is a dust magnet. The fibers from the garments take to the air and settle everywhere. The ideal solution for the sake of everyone’s health (they’re breathing in the airborne fibers) and for safety (fiber build-up is highly flammable) is an air cleaner.

But besides the health and safety issues, a dusty shop gives a poor impression of the business.

It’s true that nobody particularly likes to clean but if it becomes routine to remove dust and wipe down the equipment even every second day or so (say a half hour at the end of the day on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays) it’ll probably be all you need.

It’s a good practice for many reasons.

Check to see if the label can be removed and the fabric isn’t too rough to print on.

Many clothing lines like to remove the manufacturers’ material labels and brand garments as their own with screen printed labels. Most manufacturers know this and make their labels easy to remove, but some don’t.

This is why it is important to do a little work before agreeing to screen print labels for a customer. You want to be sure that:

1. The manufacturer’s cloth label can be removed without damaging the garment or leaving a stub (this happens if the label is sewn under or into the seam); and
2. The material on the inside of the shirt isn’t too rough to screen print on.

Ribbed. Perhaps better to decline.

Sometimes in business one just has to turn down a job even though it may seem counter-intuitive.

Just like in any other business or profession, one may occasionally be asked to do something that carries with it a risk to reputation and possible losses, in other words, a downside greater than an upside. At times like this, keeping in mind the upside/downside imbalance, it can be smart business to decline the “opportunity.”

One such “opportunity” in textile screen printing can be ribbed garments. Here’s the problem . . . it’s not that you can’t print on ribbed garments, it’s that afterwards when it stretches when it’s worn, the unprinted valleys between the ribs will be visible thus making the print unsightly. On the press the garment is not stretched as it will be when worn so ink doesn’t make it down into the valleys. And besides, while you probably could take special measures to get ink down into the valleys, is your customer going to pay you enough to make it all worthwhile?

Sometimes it’s just smarter to decline certain jobs.

Fibrillation!

Fibrillation has probably been an issue for as long textile screen printers have been printing. It’s not to be confused with the identical medical term, though sometimes it’s so frustrating that it may feel as if the printing fibrillation can lead to the medical fibrillation.

If you’re new to the industry, fibrillation is when the fibers on the garment stick up through the print to give it a “faded” look. This might be fine if you’re trying to create a worn, faded look but it’s just annoying when you’re not. And don’t think it’s a fabric quality issue. Ironically the “better” the fabric, for example nice soft brushed cotton Tees, the greater the fibrillation issue can be.

Over the years various fibrillation solutions have been used. One effective measure is a clear first-down screen to “glue” the fibers flat but the downside of this is a heavier print. In more recent times it seems that most printers are using a screen with exposed emulsion but no image as the first screen in the printing sequence to press the fibers down. A harder squeegee blade, flooding with a bit of clear base to provide lubrication for the squeegee, and extra pressure is widely used.

There are solutions to fibrillation, the trick is just to find the one that works best for you and the print you’re trying to achieve.

Portray a professional image and boost your business and the industry.

Pinterest and You Tube are beginning to annoy me! Both are guilty of promoting the idea that textile screen printing is nothing more than a craft activity anyone with a kitchen table and a few rudimentary bits and bobs (wooden frame, squeegee and some ink from Amazon or eBay) can do.

This does nothing for textile screen printing’s image as a legitimate, technically-challenging, occupation and significant contributor to the fashion and clothing industry. Image is important in establishing legitimacy (and hence the right to be rewarded appropriately) in the minds of the buying public. Wouldn’t we be more resentful of the fees that our dentists charge if Pinterest and You Tube were full of demonstrations of how to do your own extractions with just a kitchen chair, a pair of players, and a few Tylenol?

So, let’s do something about boosting the image of our industry. If every shop put forth a professional image and conducted business accordingly, it would help offset the hokey impression widely promoted in social media. In any case, a professional image is good for individual businesses by promoting confidence in customers.

Organic materials

It might be a slow process but our industry’s steady transition to organic fibers is happening and is, as usual, being led by the big and influential players.

Just as Nike, Adidas, Converse and other major sporting goods manufacturers drove the transition to non-Phthalate, non-PVC plastisol inks, major retailers are driving the organic fiber garment transition.

For example, Inditex, a Spanish-based clothing retailer with 7,490 stores worldwide (847 in the U.S. and 47 in Canada mostly under the ZARA brand name) has set a target of 90% organic materials in its clothing by 2023. In addition to this, the group aims to have 80% of its energy consumption from renewable sources and its use of plastic shopping bags will end next year.

What is your shop’s plan for joining this drive to organic materials and sustainability in our industry? It might be worth considering, not only as the responsible thing to do but, if promoted properly, it could be a marketing feature.

Misers aren’t good marketers.

Giving stuff away—even small gift items—has been a long-standing marketing tactic. And with good reason; people like receiving stuff not just because of the item itself but also because of the gesture. Giving and receiving are good feelings that can plant the seeds of a mutually beneficial relationship.

This is where misers make the mistake of false economy by saving pennies and potentially losing out on dollars. Here’s a case in point . . .  Last week in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia at a business presentation the presenter handed out worksheets to the fifteen or so participants for completion as part of the presentation. Then, in anticipation of some people not having a pen with them, he handed a pencil to each participant. That was good. What wasn’t good was that after the presentation he went around and retrieved his pencils.

First of all, he looked pretty cheap recovering pencils worth a few pennies but, more importantly, by not handing out pencils with his company name and contact information on them for the participants to keep, he missed a marketing opportunity.

Miserliness is not a good quality in a marketer. What does your shop do to subtly market itself with inexpensive gestures?

Investors, lenders, and other financiers come in many different types.

You have dreams for your new or expanded shop. But regrettably, no matter how fantastically technically outstanding your future shop is going to be, no matter how many awards it’s going to win for its work, and no matter how many customers it’s going to have, these things will never happen without an essential element that’s often not given enough consideration.

The important element that fuels all these grand plans is, of course, cash. If there’s not enough of it everything else becomes irrelevant. And it’s the first element you need to secure before your new or expanded shop even settles into the starting blocks or it will never get going. So the question becomes one of how much cash to raise, how to raise it, and where to raise it.

This is the topic of July’s excerpt from Characters Who Can Make Or Break Your Small Business in Images Magazine. You can see more on this topic by clicking here.

The dates to mark down now are September 21st and 22nd. Imprint Canada has announced that again this year they’re partnering with Promotional Products Professionals of Canada to stage the Western Imprint Canada Show in Calgary.

You should make a point of attending trade shows to keep abreast of the latest ideas and new products on the market. Remember what we always say about keeping abreast of developments in a competitive industry, if you’re not there your competitors probably are and you won’t find out what new stuff they know until they’re already making money off it.

This will not be you if your business’s goodwill turns out to be personal

It’s never too early to plan for the day you’ll want to sell your shop. There are things you should know so that you can start from day 1 of your business to get as much as you can when you eventually decide to sell.

The first thing you want to ensure is that as you grow your business you allow it to develop it’s own identity quite apart for yours—and definitely apart from the identity of any of your employees. The reason is because of a thing called “goodwill.” Not to get too technical here, but goodwill will be part of the price that you’ll be asking—the intangible part over and above the value of the tangible assets. Intangible (literally: “cannot be touched, invisible”) goodwill exists but not in the way tangible assets such as cash, vehicles, equipment, buildings and so forth exist. Goodwill can include a number of Intangibles such as the business’s good reputation, a loyal customer base, a convenient location, and other elements that keep customers coming and therefore contribute to the value of the business.

But here’s the thing about goodwill, it has no value to a buyer if it is deemed to be “personal” goodwill. So if customers are drawn to the business because of the reputation of the owner or a key employee as an excellent technician, a great personality, or some other attribute, that benefit goes away if the owner or employee goes away after the sale of the business. This is personal goodwill and why would a buyer pay for it if it goes away with the seller?

So, in anticipation of one day selling your shop, let it develop it’s own goodwill independent of you, the owner, or a key employee.

Manufacturers’ laboratories are there to help you.

One of the benefits of dealing with a supplier like Stanley’s is that because they carry quality products, they have access to sophisticated support services like manufacturers’ state-of-the-art laboratories. This is a great resource for printers who want a tricky substrate tested for, say, the best ink application. Wilflex’s testing laboratory is a good example.

All you have to do is call Stanley’s (for textile ink issues, Calgary or Cambridge) and arrange to have your material (substrate sample or perhaps a troublesome print) analysed. If Stanley’s don’t have an immediate answer, the sample can be sent to the Wilflex lab.

It may cost you a courier charge but measured against the cost of a printing disaster, it’s no contest.

Frustrated by dye migration? Wilflex plastisols offer solutions.

Many substrates on the market today are prone to dye migration, or as it’s commonly called, bleeding, This is when  the dye in the fabric migrates into the ink of the image and discolours it. Polyester is the most common offender, but it has accomplices. So how to deal with them?

The Wilflex line of plastisols offers a number of inks to cope with bleeding. And, as you know, Stanley’s is Wilflex’s Canadian distributor. So give the Cambridge (519 620 7342) or Calgary (403 243 7722) offices a call for more information on dealing with substrate bleeding. In the meantime though, here is some information on Wilflex’s non-phthalate, non-PVC inks for use on substrates prone to this problem.

The Top Score series of off-the-shelf colours is good for team sport apparel. Top Score also has a mixing base and pigments for making custom colours.

The Performance series offers bleed resistance and stretch on team sports apparel. Performance has black, white. gold, a mixing base, and pigments.

Polywhite has been an effective bleed-resistant white for many years and is as popular as ever.

Bleed Blocker Under Base is a gray formulated as a barrier to migratory dyes to be used a a first-down screen.

Wow! You can print that?

Not too long ago it was estimated that only one in fifty screen shops was skilled at printing special effects.

What this says is that it represents a business opportunity for a shop willing to put in a bit of effort and time in mastering the various special effects that can be accomplished through the appropriate art, screens, emulsions, and inks.

It’s true that some might interpret the high number of shops not printing special effects as a sign that  the demand isn’t there or that it doesn’t pay. But could it be that customers don’t know what can be done and are printers too reluctant to charge what a special print is worth?

This is something you have to decide taking into account you market and customer base. It could just be an added source of revenue. One thing is for sure though, special prints well done always get a “Wow!” reaction.

They’re as popular as they ever were—vintage prints.

This is probably because people seem to like a “lived-in” Tee or sweat but don’t have the patience to wait for many washes for the print to fade. And besides, ink quality and printing techniques have improved so much in the past number of years that images just don’t fade as readily anymore.

So, if you want a lived-in look, it has to be printed that way. Here are a few tips for achieving this:

• Designs must forego vibrant colours and stay with muted, washed-out colours.
• Lose the under-base white.
• In the design aim to use the colour of the shirt as part of it, in other words un-printed areas.
• Water-based and discharge inks are an option to consider.
• Softening additives are an option too.

A little experimenting could be a good idea.

You can hire employees, tell them what to do, pay them as little as you can get away with, give them hell when they do something wrong, and generally be a slave driver. But if you’re this type of employer then you should note that it’s not the way to reap maximum productivity and benefit for your business.

And even if you’re not this type of employer, you could still benefit from this tip . . . Buy Bob Nelson’s 1001 Ways To Reward Employees. It’s one of those business books you can flick through and pick ideas that can be applied in your particular circumstances.

A mentor can make all the difference Copyright: www.smallbusinesscharacters.com

We’ve addressed the topic of mentoring in the textile screen printing industry before. This is a particularly important topic in an industry not adequately backed by educational institutions. You know how difficult it is to recruit trained screen printers and when you do find one their value to you depends upon how well they were trained in their last job; and often it’s not well. Mentoring new screen printers can only benefit the industry.

Then there’s also your own training as a business owner. If you came from a technical background, running your own shop brings with it a steep learning curve. This is where mentoring can be a big help and, in fact, be the difference between success and failure of your business.

For more on this, check out June’s edition of Images online magazine by clicking here.

A recent post about a textile screen shop on LinkedIn caught my eye. The owner of The Greek Corner Screen Print & Embroidery kindly gave me permission to use the accompanying photo of his shop to a make point about the link between a clean and organized screen shop and a successful shop.

Hopefully not your ink room manager!

We’ve probably all seen textile screen shops, particularly ink rooms, that look more like a paintball shooting gallery managed by people who should definitely be doing some other job. And these are not generally successful shops. It also often shows in the rest of their presentation such as web sites, Facebook page, and front office.  The Greek Corner’s website is worth a visit to reinforce the “presentation reflects success” concept.

If you believe that your shop sets a standard in cleanliness and organization, let us know and we’d be happy to showcase it too.

So who runs the simplest, streamlined, most efficient textile shop then?

Edward De Bono, author and renowned lateral thinker, is quoted as having said, “If you never change your mind, why have one?” One of the things he urges people to change their minds about is how they do things—he advocates simplicity as explained in detail in his book, Simplicity.

This is a concept you should consider for your shop. We tend make things more complicated than they need to be and it costs us in time and productivity. Even small changes can make a difference. For instance, if you can cut an unnecessary activity in your shop even if it’s one that takes only, say, 15 minutes a day, that’s a saving of about 60 man-hours a year.

Aside from the satisfaction of knowing that you’re running a slick, efficient operation, think of the dollar-saving possibilities. Look for simplification possibilities—it makes sense on so many levels.

We’ve told you before about the ergonomic EZGrip squeegee. But now let Todd Tomlinson (just one of 22 reviews received by EZGrip in the past week) give you his feedback . . .

The EZGrip ergonomic squeegee.

“What I liked about it:

a) A natural grip – at 62 I’m battling all the wear and tear on my wrists from years of swinging hammer in the construction industry and all the keyboard work in my white collar jobs. No Advil yesterday for the first time in a long time.

b) Significantly easier to consistently pull print. My transfers were, for the first time, consistent from print to print. After printing thousands of transfers I have my technique down, but this provided another level of consistency that I have had a hard time achieving over hundreds of transfers on a given day.

c) Cleared the screen the first pass nearly every time with white through 156 mesh, which means for 100 transfers I’m pulling 2 to 4 fewer times per transfer. That is 200 to 400 fewer strokes per 100 transfers.”

We don’t need to add anything except to remind you that Stanley’s has the EZGrip squeegee. At about $33 aren’t your wrists and arms worth more?

A basic clam shell press.

You essentially have three heat press choices: clam shell; swinger, or draw.

The clam shell press is easy for beginners to use. However, it may not be suitable for all thicker garments and layout occurs under the heat source (the upper platen). The upper and lower platens are joined by a hinge at the back. The upper platen is lowered onto the lower platen to apply pressure and heat to the garment.

The swinger press allows for easier layout as the upper platen swings away to one side but this means that it requires more space than the clam shell. Since the upper platen swings away, setup is not under heat. Experienced operators can produce more work on a swinger than on a clam shell.

The lower platen of the draw press pulls forward for layout and is then slid back before the upper platen is lowered to apply heat and pressure. The draw press is conducive to higher volumes of work but also requires more room than a clam shell.

You have digital versus manual features to consider and, of course, price. But this overview of your choices is a good place to start your research.

A perfect substrate for a novel message.

I saw sock pallets recently capable of enabling a print from tip to heel. Then not an hour later I saw a store display with printed socks in high density ink that combined messages with a non-slip traction function. The idea was that elevated socked feet would show a printed message. Some were cute and some were very clear messages such as “Get me a beer” or “Go away, I’m reading.”

This is another possibility for textile shops looking for additional income streams. It’s the kind of novelty printed product that could be added to the offering on an online store.

Worth exploring?

Just look at my online store on Shopify!

In the previous post we talked about opening a new income stream for your shop via an online store hosted by Shopify. As was mentioned then, Shopify supports its clients with a lot of useful information, tips, and ideas to improve their online business. One such recent article listed ten trending online products and at least three of them could be of interest to textile screen printers because, while they’re not printed Tees, they’re still clothing items and not too far a departure from your area of expertise.

One is a men’s plaid shirt, one is athletic wear like leggings, and another is a heated vest (think Canadian winters).

A little creativity, a little research, and a little experimentation. Who knows what could happen?

Just look at my online store on Shopify!

You don’t need to be reminded that the Canadian textile screen printing market is not easy, particularly in the main centers where it can sometimes cutthroat. But even if you currently have a niche market (product or location), perhaps far from the any of the big centers where you may feel quite comfortable for now, your bubble could burst tomorrow. Nothing lasts forever, especially in the business arena.

So how to insulate your shop from the full impact of an attack on your current comfortable situation? Or how to deal with a stifling market place where everyone is competing locally for the same customer?

Consider an online aspect to your shop on Shopify. It doesn’t have to be an extension of your T-shirt production; there are already a ton of online Tee vendors. You have a production facility, you have design capability, and you have equipment. All you need to add is creativity—ideas for products and ways to produce them. Think about it. Do some research. Think about it some more. Test your ideas. Keep in mind that Shopify is a great resource for online selling—check them out.

An online store on Shopify could be the diversification and additional income stream you’ve been looking for.

Don’t be fooled or bullied by a landlord.

This month’s Images Magazine is featuring an excerpt from the Landlord chapter of Characters Who Can Make Or Break Your Small Business. If you’re renting or intend renting premises this excerpt is full of useful information you’ve probably never considered.

A direct link to the excerpt is here but while you’re there you should check out the rest of the online magazine as well—it has a lot of good stuff for textile screen printers.

Imprint Canada has announced the launch of a digital catalogue to serve as a hub for various industry supplier catalogues.  At the moment it offers access to mostly garment catalogues enabling viewers to look around for styles and prices all from one site.

This is a positive development that Canadian textile screen printers are bound to find useful.

Try it here.

My cash flow can’t handle you anymore. Please go away!

When you ask a customer to pay an overdue invoice the response can range from an apology and immediate payment to an aggressive reaction and a threat to take their work elsewhere. One of the more creative and cheeky responses I ever heard of a screen printer receiving from a customer was: “Why are you asking me for money? Do you have a cash flow problem?” Of course it’s an outrageous response for many reasons, but there is an element of truth to it.

The fact is that slow paying customers can cause cash flow challenges but we tend to deal with it by not dealing with it because we are terrified of losing a customer. So we end up retaining a bad customer. But we need to remember that a consistently slow-paying customer can often turn into a non-paying customer which has the same result as giving away our product for nothing. If you can’t turn a slow-paying customer into a prompt-paying customer it’s probably better to get rid of them before they become a non-paying customer.

Cleaning and reorganizing makes good business sense.

The busy season will be so much more tolerable  and productive if you give the shop a morale-boosting cleanup before things become hectic. I know that there’s never a good time to do this kind of thing but making time is really not all that difficult. One way to do it is to down tools for a day while things are still a bit slow and have everyone do nothing but clean up and reorganize. Reward them with coffee and donuts in the morning, pizza at lunch time and perhaps a beer or two when the job is done. Friday would be a good day because that will mean that paint (floors, shelves etc) will have the weekend to dry properly.

Imagine a busy season when you can lay your hands on materials and tools without having to look for them. Ink, emulsions etc. properly labeled and shelved. Clear walkways and work spaces. Clean equipment. Annoying minor equipment malfunctions fixed. Planned workflow.

A clean, organized shop is a happy, productive shop, especially in the busy summer season when there’s enough pressure without also wasting time because of filth, disorganization, and malfunctioning equipment.