Heat Printing Zone at SGIA featuring Ted Stahl
Oct/110
Visitors to the SGIA Expo in New Orleans will experience many interactive exhibits, from hands-on demonstrations to product giveaways. Don’t miss out on your chance to interact with industry pioneer and Sporting Goods Industry Hall of Fame member Ted Stahl.
Ted will be hosting question and answer sessions in the Stahls’ Heat Printing Zone on Wednesday, October 19 and Thursday, October 20 at 1:15 pm. Ask Ted any questions you may have on heat printing and garment decoration and benefit from his over 35 years in the garment graphic industry.
So get to the Heat Printing Zone and see Ted – he wants to hear from you.
Find the complete schedule of events in the Heat Printing Zone here.
Magic at the SGIA Expo
Sep/110
To most consumers, garment decoration is a mystery. Somehow, somewhere, people take plain shirts, jackets, and hats and Shazam! make them into great-looking apparel. You can see the magic happen firsthand at the 2011 SGIA Expo in New Orleans, October 19-21. Nobody will be wearing top hats or capes, and no rabbits will be pulled from hats, but there will be hands-on demonstrations, informational sessions with industry experts, and even prizes and giveaways.
It’s all happening in the Stahls’ Heat Printing Zone. There you’ll find refreshments, samples, demonstrations, and forums with world-class experts. You’ll learn how to decorate your customers from head to toe – literally. Topics include printing on headwear, creating graphic T-shirts, and customizing shoes, as well as discussions on industry trends and innovations. Plus, you’ll have the chance to win a Hotronix® Fusion™ heat press at our Friday drawing.
And don’t forget to visit our other areas.
In booth #1245 you’ll be able to see samples of Transfer Express’ screen printed transfers and get more information on our products.
The Digital Apparel Zone(#3125) will have live demonstrations of cut and sew equipment, heat transfer and print/cut technology, and cutting-edge techniques in digital apparel decoration.
Cap off your day with a visit to the Screen Printed Apparel Training Zone (#3319). Each day at 3:30 pm Josh Ellsworth of CAD-CUT ®Direct will demonstrate the use of screen printed transfers and heat press machines, as well as a thorough review of heat applied materials.
Stahls’ is Heat Printing, so be sure to visit us at the SGIA Expo and on Facebook.
Facebook Marketing Tip No. 1 – Show Off Your Shirts On Facebook
Sep/110
While more decorated apparel shops are understanding the worth of putting up a Facebook business page, many are still struggling with what kind of content to post. To make your Facebook a viable business tool, you must find the right balance between fun and interesting vs. promotional information.
People are on Facebook for mostly social reasons, and they do not want to be bombarded with what is going to be considered advertising for a business. However, there are a number of ways to communicate what services you offer without being offensive or blatant.
One of the easiest ways to promote yourself on Facebook is to show off your work. When you finish a job that you’re proud of, make sure you take a photo of it and post it up on Facebook. Tell a little bit about it. Good examples are what was the purpose of the shirt, who did the artwork, and how it was decorated. Even better, see if you can get customers to shoot a photo of a recipient or their customer wearing the shirt.
If you think about it, having a shot with your customers happily wearing shirts you created is probably one of the greatest testimonials you can get. Even without copy stating “I love my shirts from The ABC T-Shirt shop,” the photo says it all.
All shops have favorite customers with whom they have a great relationship. Consider asking some of your best customers if they wouldn’t mind taking a photo sometime of some work you’ve done for them. It’s a painless, inexpensive way to gain some valuable exposure for your business, and your customers will probably be flattered to see you post their shirts on Facebook as well.
Put photos on Facebook of customers wearing their shirts.
Tips for Screen Printing Custom Artwork: Tip 3 – Converting Text to Curves
Aug/110
One of the questions we recommended in Tip 2 that you ask your customers when they provide artwork was to ask about the fonts and to make sure they were converted to curves/outlines. We will cover that in more detail this week since it is probably the most important aspect when sending in custom artwork for screen printing.
Text in artwork needs to be “converted to curves”. This means that once the text is converted, it is no longer text. It becomes a shape or in other words, a piece of art. The benefit of this is that no matter which computer the file is being viewed on, it will appear the same. It is no longer dependent on having the font installed on each computer. This ensures that your artwork looks the same on our computer as it did on yours and the computer your customer created it on.
To convert to curves in CorelDraw®:
- Select your text
- Click the ‘Arrange’ menu
- Choose ‘Convert to Curves’
The 'Convert to Curves' option is located under the 'Arrange' menu in CorelDraw
Make sure you do this for all text that is in the file.
To convert to curves (create outlines) in Adobe Illustrator®:
- Select your text
- Click the ‘Type’ menu
- Choose ‘Create Outlines’
The 'Create Outlines' option is located under the 'Type' menu in Illustrator
Again, make sure you do this for all text that is in the file.
Making sure that your text is converted to curves is extremely important. Watch our video tutorials on converting text to curves and then also reducing the node count afterwards.
Tips for Screen Printing Custom Artwork: Tip 2 – Top Questions to Ask Your Customers
Jul/110
A lot of times your own customers provide the art that they would like made into shirts or other apparel. When this occurs, here are some important questions to ask them about the artwork that will help speed up the process and also help to save you money.
Resolution
If the customer gives you a digital file with the artwork, ask them first where the artwork came from. In asking them this question, you will get a better idea of what other questions you may need to ask. If the answer is from the internet, that should give you a red flag right away. Internet graphics are low resolution made for monitor viewing. Printed materials need to be high resolution at full size.
File Type
If they said they created the art themselves, ask which application they used to create it. The best answer would be CorelDraw® or Adobe Illustrator®. This would let you know that the artwork is most likely vector. If they did create the artwork, ask for the native (original) file that they worked in if they did not provide you with it already. We frequently see rasterized images of artwork that were originally created as vector, but were supplied as a flattened bitmap. We then have to rework to get it back to vector. For reference only, ask for a low resolution .jpg to ensure that all fonts did not default – which brings us to the next question.
Fonts
If there is text in the design, ask your customer to supply you with the font names. In case the type does default, having the font names greatly speeds up the process to reset it. Better yet, ask them if the text is converted to curves or outlines. This ensures that the type will not default and the art will be usable.
By asking these few simple questions, you are saving yourself and our designers lots of time which will ensure to keep our processes as speedy as possible to keep orders on schedule.
Example of provided artwork by your customer turned into a screen printed transfer
5 Trends Team Dealers Need To Watch and Tools to Help Meet Those Needs
Jul/110
Decorate your full uniform with Transfer Express - uniform front, names, numbers, helmet stickers
In the July issue of Team Dealer magazine, the top 5 trends team dealers need to watch was listed:
- Rising Importance of Parents
- Rising Importance of Ecommerce
- Shorter Lead Times
- Growth in Stock Uniform Sales
- Spirit Pack Sales Soar
We have many tools to help you meet the needs these new trends create.
Our website becomes your website with our generic site you can use with parents—Easyprints.com. This site has no contact information and can be linked to your own site or used as an online reference for teams and their parents. So, even if you don’t have the budget for your own site, you can make the Easy Prints site your own. Include the site on your own business cards and literature with information on how to order.
Once your customer has used Easy Prints to choose a design, same day shipping is available for single color orders when ordered by 11 AM EST so you can offer your customers the shortest lead times possible. Once the custom transfer is printed, it can be applied to your in stock uniforms in just seconds so your customer is ready for today’s game.
To help with spirit sales we offer pages full of layouts and free online flyers that can be used as is or personalized for a specific team.
We also now offer 6″ 2 color numbers in 34 different color combinations.
Decorator Converts Home Into Shop, Showroom & Tiki Bar
Jul/110
When most decorators want to entertain a client, they might take them out to a nice local restaurant. But Tim Hoffman, owner, Hoffman Embroidery, had a better idea. He built a tiki bar.
After paying big rent at the Annapolis Mall in Annapolis, Maryland, for years, Hoffman and his partner decided they’d had enough of that. So the embroiderer, who lives in a three-level house, gutted 1,000 feet on the first floor and built his shop, a showroom, and an outdoor tiki bar instead. It’s now home to his one singlehead, one four-head, and two two-head embroidery machines and two Stahls’ Hotronix heat transfer presses.
The tiki bar garnered media attention from a local newspaper The Capital, Annapolis, Md., November 13, 2010 issue and March/April 2011 issue of Stitches magazine where it was the cover story.
“It looks just like a tiki bar you’d see on the beach in the British Virgin Islands,” says Hoffman. “We have water in the back yard. It’s enclosed in the wintertime so we can use it year-round.”
Although Hoffman doesn’t sell drinks, it’s used for entertaining clients and friends for all kinds of occasions. “It looks like a real bar, and we have mixed drinks,” he notes. “We throw big neighborhood parties and watch all the big sporting events. It’s a perfect man cave.”
In addition to offering embroidery, Hoffman also is a regular customer of Transfer Express. When he gets multi-color print jobs, he has found transfers the best way to go. “When we get an eight-color job for a dark shirt, if you screen print it, that’s eight screens plus a white underbase. When it’s a left-chest size design for 100 shirts, the only cost-effective way to do it is using Transfer Express CAD-PRINTZ™.”
“We’ve used them for a multitude of orders, and they have always done a great job with outstanding service at a price that is affordable,” says Hoffman. “We also get quick turnaround. We’re glad to have them on our team.”
Owner Tim Hoffman and production manager Amy Lynn Hall sit on a stool in the outdoor tiki bar that is used to entertain clients throughout the year. Hoffman built it at the same time he transformed the first floor of his three-story house into his shop and showroom.
Creating Name Event Shirts Can Be Big Money Maker
Jun/110
If you are doing any type of event such a sports tournament, gymnastics or track meet, or dancing, skating, or baton twirling competition, you may be leaving money on the table if you are not offering a shirt with all the participant’s names on it.
For Philip Daly, Proprintwear (https://proprintwear.com/), East Setauket, N.Y., this type of shirt is always a best seller. Proprintwear travels the country setting up at national and regional fencing tournaments, where he is often the official supplier.
Prior to the event, organizers send Proprintwear the list of entrants, which he then inputs into a document. He has learned that he can get 1,500 names onto an 11- by 14-inch transfer. If the event has more than 1,500 names, he will either split the list into two parts or sometimes even three. In all situations, any entrant can buy an event T-shirt with his or her name on the back.
This 11-by-14-inch transfer will fit on a shirt on any size from youth small and up. He credits his ability to do this highly detailed type of design on the continually improving quality of Transfer Express transfers. “The ability to put name transfers on shirts has improved by 300%,” he says.
As an add-on sale, Proprintwear plans on offering customers the opportunity to have a gold star added to their name so it stands out on the list by stocking the stars made out of precut heat press transfer films.
Customers can choose from more than 250 stocked designs of various sizes, and the process starts with one design, but it does not end there. Customers may add as many additional designs as space allows thus creating a one-of-a-kind garment of their liking.
Proprintwear has labeled this market technique as Add-A-Print. The basic shirt retails for $19.95 while charging an additional $10 for each Add-A-Print. Furthering customer satisfaction, Proprintwear imprints these designs wherever the customer desires.
Often he’ll have these shirts on display not only in his booth, but also at registration and where participants check their equipment so they get maximum exposure.
An event shirt with all the participants' names
What do you need to print custom T-shirts and apparel?
Jun/117
We are in the planning stages for the 2012 custom transfer Idea Book™ and offerings and need your feedback. We want to help you to continue to have success selling custom apparel.
Is there clip art, colors, or a layout category you think we are missing?
Would you want additional number styles or colors?
Any problem applications we can help you solve?
Just leave us a comment below and we will look into implementing it!
Give us your feedback and ideas!
