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Credit: Jamshop, Adelaide, Australia. This is the third week of promoting minimalism as a source of design inspiration. This design is about as minimalist as one can get. It was prepared for the Adelaide Casino, Australia to promote their ladies’ . . . → Read More: Contagious creativity… minimalism (part 3). Film for producing film positives on laser printers comes in various thicknesses, various degrees of translucency and various prices. For instance, Screenflex carries Kimoto’s range of 3 choices of laser film: Kimodesk Regular laser film is a slightly opaque film and the “thinnest” of the three choices at .003 mm thick. This is the third week of referencing extracts from Rafi Mohammed’s book, The Art of Pricing. The point this week is that transactions are two-way streets; something we often overlook when pricing. “While the common convention is that sellers should be grateful to customers, it’s important to remember that transactions are two-way streets. The point that I . . . → Read More: “The Art of Pricing” – weekly extract number 3. Last week we had a familiar inquiry concerning suitable emulsions for an exposure unit with a weak light source. Most of these inquiries come from start-ups who do not yet have the luxury of top-of-the-line equipment. In fact, quite often the equipment in question is “home-made” and the light source is weak. This inquiry concerned the fact . . . → Read More: Emulsion for weak light sources, a FAQ. Ink remover is not a hand cleaner! That includes ink washes and on-press cleaners. We don’t care how “safe” some manufacturers claim their ink removers are or whether they are soy-based or solvent-based, it is not smart to use them for cleaning human skin. We recently had an inquiry from a printer who wanted to replace the . . . → Read More: Ink remover is not a hand cleaner! Much to Mark’s relief, he was not fired last Monday morning. It was a close thing though and the boss was angry enough to tell him that he might just stay out of trouble if he considered wearing duct tape over his mouth. This morning when Mark and Jamie arrived at work, Mark asked the boss why . . . → Read More: What did you do this weekend? Credit: Service Plan, Hamburgh/Munich, Germany. This is the second week of promoting minimalism as a source of design inspiration. Much to our embarrassment, after last week’s posting, we were reminded that it was Leonardo da Vinci who is credited with saying, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” We should have known that. This design, ‘Hitler . . . → Read More: Contagious creativity… minimalism (part 2). This is the second week of referencing extracts from Rafi Mohammed’s book, The Art of Pricing. Last week we quoted a passage about how, in situations where margins are razor-thin (such as in much of the Canadian textile screen printing industry), raising prices just 1% could improve the bottom line by 11%. This week we are . . . → Read More: “The Art of Pricing” – weekly extract number 2. This is the third week of suggestions for matching ink with garments in the Trimark catalogue “GEAR UP”. We move to page 19 today (not shown here) where the jackets shown are described as 100% Nylon with water resistant coating and a water resistant finish. In short, a screen printer’s nightmare. If you are asked to print on treated . . . → Read More: Matching ink types with fabric types (Part 3) It was announced late last week that Weston Presidio had sold its controlling interest in Toronto-based Trimark Sportswear Group to Polyconcept North America. Trimark was founded in 1975 in Markham, Ontario. Polyconcept is a U.S.-based manufacturer of promotional products such as stationery, travel accessories, planners and appointment books. There has been no indication yet as to whether . . . → Read More: Controlling interest in Trimark sold. Mark had a bad weekend. When he left work on Friday he wasn’t sure if he would still have a job this morning. We haven’t had an update yet but it’s not looking good. On Saturday night at the Crown and Anchor Mark explained to Jamie why the boss stormed out on Friday afternoon, slammed the door . . . → Read More: What did you do this weekend? Credit: Publicis, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. This week we are promoting minimalism as a source of inspiration. The product is Coke light lemon. Somebody once said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” We don’t know for sure who said it, but it must be true because we have it printed on a fridge magnet from . . . → Read More: Contagious creativity… minimalism. Last week we introduced The Art of Pricing by Rafi Mohammed. Starting this week, we are going to offer for consideration a weekly extract of a single pricing idea or concept. As we mentioned before, this book is full of thought-provoking pricing ideas and concepts. If you can find a copy to buy, we recommend that . . . → Read More: “The Art of Pricing” – weekly extract number 1. This is the second week of suggestions for matching ink with the garments in the Trimark catalogue “GEAR UP”. We move on to page 8 today where the garments are 100% dyed Polyester pique knit with wicking. As we have pointed out so many times before, direct printing on dyed Polyester requires dye migration control. It is . . . → Read More: Matching ink types with fabric types (Part 2). We noticed an announcement yesterday that Gildan had acquired the U.S. head-quartered sock company, Gold Toe Moretz, for $350 million. We recall fondly the time when Gildan was a Montreal cut-and-sew operation and a textile screen printing shop printing mostly licensed major league sports garments. They grew steadily and, as Canadians, they made us proud; but then they . . . → Read More: Good for Gildan, but what will the job impact be? By now the boss is becoming accustomed to Monday morning staff absences, particularly as far as Mark goes. If it weren’t for the fact that Mark was a first class printer he’d have been gone two weeks ago after the blonde incident at the pub. But the boss reasoned that a Mark four days a week . . . → Read More: What did you do this weekend? It appears that after 7 years, one of the Mars Rovers, originally expected to only work for 90 days, has unfortunately died. Spirit has apparently not survived its hibernation during another winter on Mars where the temperatures can go as low as minus 107 degrees Celsius (sounds a bit like Winnipeg). Historical events like the landing of . . . → Read More: Contagious creativity… the Mars Rovers. As part of our ongoing series on pricing, we want to recommend that you read The Art of Pricing by Rafi Mohammed. We recommend it for anyone running a business of any size, new or established, but particularly for textile screen print shops where pricing is always a big challenge, as we have already described in . . . → Read More: Pricing book recommendation. You have probably received “GEAR UP” the Team & Sport 2011 Catalog from Trimark and may be asked to print on some of the different garment types that they offer. By the way, if you don’t receive Trimark catalogs, we suggest that you call and ask to be on their mailing list. Over the next few weeks we . . . → Read More: Matching ink types with fabric types. The old topic about whether or not something is appropriate to print on a t-shirt came up again recently. We thought that it might be time to once more give the topic some mention because it is something that could confront every t-shirt printer sooner or later. Quoted below is a blog entry posted by ParentDish.com that deals with a particular incident. This . . . → Read More: Abercrombie and Fitch’s “offensive” t-shirts. We have another episode of Mark and Jamie’s weekend activities. This morning Jamie arrived at the print shop alone. The boss knew right away that he was going to be short staffed because Jamie and Mark always car-pooled. As Jamie came through the door the boss was on him, “Where’s Mark? Jamie expected the question and immediately answered, “Mark’s got . . . → Read More: What did you do this weekend? For most Canadian textile screen printers that we informally surveyed, the winter (also known as the slow season) has been too long. The good news though is that most also say that they finally see things “beginning to stir out there.” There are many theories about why the economy is good or bad at any one time. . . . → Read More: The 2011 busy season… are we there yet? |
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