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When Kristy Beauvais, the “Flounder” of FocusFish had a holiday show coming up, she needed some branded leotards for her camp students. With a hard deadline, she didn’t know how to make it happen with all the other things she handles running her acrobatic camps. Thankfully, a mutual friend sent her to us and we helped her sort it out.

We knew it would be a bit of a challenge. Kristy didn’t know anything about screen printing on spandex. We didn’t know anything about wearing leotards for acrobatics. Jazzercise, sure, but… oops. That’s too much information. Anyway, there was a lot of missing info about what was needed.

So we talked… a lot. We learned how her student performers use ropes and the trapeze and where they tend to get abrasions (ok… ow). Getting the right material and style at the right price takes a lot of research. There’s also a high level of difficulty when printing on spandex or other stretchy materials. So after mucho education on all our parts, we made some meaningful suggestions to Kristy that narrowed down the field.

Typically, we order apparel for our clients because we have access to thousands of styles and brands at wholesale prices. In this case, with the info we gave her, Kristy was able to find her own local source for her leotards at a price she could afford. So we worked out a rate for her that included printing on the blank stock she brought to us.

This is a perfect case study for why we don’t just list “generic” rates on our web site. The more we can learn about our client’s business and how they plan to use the apparel we print, the better price and result we can give them. With Kristy’s guidance, we stuck the landing. Boo-ya.

FocusFish had a successful holiday show and her performers looked awesome. I’ll share some photos from FocusFish, but please go check out her programs, especially if you’re in Southern California. Not only did we feel good about making her students look great, we love supporting worthwhile programs like this. Thanks, Kristy!

All photos are ©2014 by Donna Fedorowycz

Rudolph?

Don’t look at me, I’m horrid. Really. Okay, look. Just for a second. I know how your morbid little mind works.

Alright, that’s enough. Back to reading.

It’s just before New Year’s and I’m nursing a bad chest cold (is there a good one?). Maybe that’s a bad turn of phrase. I am not actually the one nursing the cold here, Jenni is nursing me. Big difference. I may publicly throw my swagger around like sweet chocolate treats, but when I get the sniffles, I turn into a sniveling mess.

Still, I’ve been meaning to write a glorious post to sum up our first official year of screen printing. I have scant time left before Ryan Seacrest and Judge Sotomayor officially let us into 2014, so there may be some chest cold-level sniveling mixed in with the gloriousness.

We did it!

First things first. We did it! We turned an idea into ink on t-shirts and happy clients. In January, I was still setting up our first press and trying to figure out how to build our shop out of two-by-fours and a halogen light from Home Depot.

By May we were selling our vegan t-shirts to a Sparky-loving crowd at WorldFest. By September we were serving (multiple) repeat custom screen print clients.

It’s four days to closing out our first official year and while we’re not (yet) the best-known screen printing shop in Los Angeles, we’ve made some really great t-shirts for thousands of great people. That makes me happy. If you’re one of those people, thank you! It was a pleasure serving you.

Oops, I did it again. Or at least once.

There were more hard lessons learned for us this year than even Amanda Bynes would appreciate. The reality checks were bountiful. Here are a few highlights of things we learned:

• Even though I shake my fist at the gods and swear it cannot be done… I will do it anyway. So new motto for 2014: Shut up and print.
• Cheap-o t-shirts feel like wearing a Brillo pad. So no more printing on crappy cheap-o t-shirts without a signed and notarized consent form or a ruling by a Federal judge. At least now we know where to get low-cost shirt blanks that feel like cotton instead of steel wool.
• We can print on paper lunch bags better and more reliably than an inkjet. Panic first, figure it out second, get ‘er done, third.
• So far we haven’t really needed that heat press and wide format inkjet printer to compete with local shops. In fact, we’ve learned how to do it all differently so we don’t have to worry about competition.
• We will screw some things up – but we can deal with it. There was that time I ordered the wrong shirts. Actually, now that I look back it was three times. Thankfully we work with two local vendors who were able to send us the right shirts in a day. I generated some unwashable armpit stains over this, but thankfully I own a t-shirt company. Crisis averted, my own stinky shirt replaced, and we soldiered on.

We’ve made our own path.

Sometimes it’s been a slow and painful hike down that path. There have been mosquito clouds to swat and thorny vines to machete our way through to get to this point. All along the way, we kept getting glimpses of the easy, paved road in the distance. It was tempting to step onto it and just do it like everyone else. It was tempting to take the cheapest route with heat presses and direct-to-garment printers, to play the game of competing on price. Just when temptation was strongest, someone would step onto our path and say, “Hey, I like how you’re doing that. Can you help me?” And instantly our focus would go back to printing by hand the best t-shirts we can for the people who appreciate our style of service.

We couldn’t have made that path without help from people all over the world, mostly via the internet. Every time I got stuck on a printing problem, someone from Ryonet, T-shirt Forums, Catspit, or even an ink vendor would rescue me via blog post or YouTube video. Huge thanks to them. I plan to pay it forward to new screen printers in 2014 with some instructional posts and videos of my own.

Go ahead, Judge… lower that ball!

It’s almost 2014 and I haven’t yet mapped our path. It’s all in my head, which is currently stuffed up. I’ll blow it out my nose in a few days and share it on Instagram. Lucky you.

Despite the phlegm hiding in the dark corners of my lungs, I need to print an order right now. Sometimes that’s how it works when you serve people with your craft. Either you take it easy and they get a huge letdown… or you swallow some boiling tea, man up, and get ‘er done.

As selfless and martyr-making as I made that sound, it’s actually the most selfish thing I could do today. I started printing for me and I love doing it. The fact that someone gets to enjoy what I create is very cool, but I think I might get more out of it in the larger picture.

Wow, that tea made me ramble. I better shut up and print now.

All the best to you and yours in the new year!

Ow! Holy Sh***! OW!

I’m experiencing a sharp pain in my job estimator (it’s near the gall bladder). I take a deep breath, hold my side and stare at the ceiling until it passes.

Okay, that’s a little better. I’m still twitching, but at least I’m under control for now.

I get this pain every time a customer emails me artwork and I instantly see how expensive it’s going to be to print it on a t-shirt. See, the pain I feel isn’t for me, it’s for them. It’s sympathy pain.

Oh, the artwork may be gorgeous; a hand-painted original in all the shiny colors you’d find inside a bag of Tropical Skittles. It looks great on paper and even nice in the email. It might look nice on a shirt, but it’s going to cost a small fortune.

So what’s the deal? Why isn’t it cheaper? In this age of scanning and uploading art to Vista Print to get $6.00 business cards, why does getting a few shirts screen printed require a second mortgage?

I’ve covered this before in other posts, but I want to talk to you specifically about your artwork. I don’t want to get into the nitty gritty of CMYK vs spot color or high res file conversion. You don’t need to know all that to get shirts printed, and you shouldn’t have to get a Graphic Design degree to save a little money. The advice I have for you is super duper simple and I can sum it up in one word: PLANNING.

In short, you’re doing it backwards. Typically what many of our customers do is:

1. decide they want a new business logo or design for their event
2. find an artist who will create it (free or cheap), and then;
3. go find sources to print it.

Backwards! Well, sort of. Let me explain.

I know your friend/sister-in-law/nephew is a fantastic artist. You need to know up front if they have any experience in prepping artwork for print. Ideally, they should be the ones responsible for creating art you can actually use in different types of media. If not, all bets are off.

Even better, do a little research into the different ways your design will used. Will you need a sign made? Will you need it in one color on a stress ball? T-shirts you can actually afford to print? Self-inking stamp? Most vendors will have guidelines for you to follow. We post our artwork guidelines right here on our site. If you or your artist ever want to ask questions about our process, we give you unlimited advice free of charge. It’s what we do.

This way, you’re prepared to talk to an artist before anything is created.

No matter how much you love your artist and their beautiful art, you need to be prepared for all the different ways you’ll want it reproduced. That may require a little work on your part, but in the end you will have a much easier time getting what you want and saving money along the way.

A huge autographed thank you from our customers, A Flock of Seagulls. You may have read about the trouble on their summer tour. Well, we can’t just leave them with that impression of Southern California, so we stepped up and printed their concert tees lickety split to keep up with them on the rest of their tour.

They were awesome to work with on their concert tees.

Thanks, guys!

Waterstone's has floated the idea of introducing differential book pricing across stores in the UK in its discussions with some publishers.

The chain is considering marketing books at different prices across different branches, according to its type of demographic. The concept is also believed to have been considered by Waterstone's previous management under the HMV Group, before current m.d. James Daunt and Russian owner Alexander Mamut took over in July.

read more

Borders’ CEO Mike Edwards has written an email to the 41 million members of the Borders Rewards loyalty program. In his note, Edwards promised customers that if they can’t find a desired book in a Borders store, the bookseller will order it and priority ship it free of charge to the customer’s home.

According to AnnArbor.com, this free service will be available until June 12th. The article offered this quote from the email: ”I hope you visit your neighborhood Borders and find that special book that speaks to you personally … It’s our way of showing our appreciation for your continued support and loyalty.”

Currently, Borders continues to struggle to reach an agreement with publishers about future book shipments. As we noted earlier, Edwards emphasized that Borders’ ability to weather the crisis is dependent on the support of publishers. What do you think?

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Richard's Variety

Charis: Books and More

Tall Tales Book Shop

2105 Lavista Road
Atlanta, GA 30329

Junkman's Daughter

Sprout: a children's store

It's a Baby

High Museum of Art

Kangaroo Pouch

56 E Andrews Dr NW

Atlanta, GA 30305

Atlanta Botanical Garden

Fernbank Museum of Natural History

Martinis & IMAX (What a brilliant idea!)

James Stevenson illustrates the evolution of New York's Thanksgiving Day parade.

When the dolls were replaced by live kittens dressed in baby clothes, the public packed the sidewalk.

The photo on top is from http://www.nyctourist.com/macys_history1.htm (Hey! Notice the Lulu Kleenex Billboards)

I see that some of you are having fun with Google Analytics. Good for you. I’ll put up the information regarding the other programs on the column soon. In fact, renovations and redecorating sound like something to do in between sending out cover letters and resumes. While I’m focusing on that, and lining up more goodness for this blog, here’s something to keep you occupied.

The Smart Bitches have a very informative interview up with three authors on the subject of making and using book trailers to advertise your book. Though the authors are all represent the Romance genre the advice they pass along and their thoughts on the book trailer subject are applicable to all. I especially agree with Tony McGee Causey’s advice to make use of the lower cost options around you, such as using grad students in theatre and film programs or connections through friends. Within two degrees of my friend group I know several actors, graphic designers, directors and film editors and I also happen to live a little over ten blocks away from the Art Institute where many budding artists attend. We’re all trying to make a name for ourselves doing something, and I know many people are willing to do something for less money if it allows them to build their portfolio.

Speaking of book trailers, don’t forget about Marta Acosta’s contest for the Best and Worst Book Trailer of a Classic Novel, which now has a trailer all its own. The deadline has been extended to September 15^th. First prize is Adobe Creative Design Suite 3 Premium Pro.

Nephele Tempest of the Knight Agency breaks down Best-sellers vs. bestsellers.

Booksquare has a post up relating to book trailers, word of mouth and all other forms of reaching a reading public in, “Reaching Readers: The Door-to-Door Theory.”

Jessica at the Written Nerd posts her own thoughts on America’s reading habits.

Just a heads up to all you interested in the Bookselling World, the ABA (American Booksellers Association) has a blog called the ABA Omnibus, “a regular update on bookselling, retail, authors, culture, technology, and…”

Also of interest, Bookselling This Week has an article on Booksellers Who Blog highlighting the aforementioned Written Nerd among others.

In “Me, Me, It’s All About Me!” news, I’ve seen my name in print (and it is a glooooorious thing that will probably never happen again). I received my copy of The New Writer’s Handbook 2007 from Scarletta Press, in which my blog essay “Your Gateway Drug” appears. The book also contains essays from amazing folks like Neil Gaiman, Rosina Lippi, Jane Yolen, Erica Jong, Lynn Viehl, and Linda Sue Park (among others who are old hands at seeing their name in print). Now that all the visiting members of my family have left town, I’ll hopefully get a chance to sit down and read it.

My precioussssssssss.

From Mud Flat April Fool by James Stevenson