T-shirts Org

It's a dirty job, but my son has got to do it...

2011-11-06T23:04:00.000-08:00

My son has been working on Flash web design interfaces for simple games over the last few years. He's gotten a pirate ship to shoot canons and lines that do something or another. However, lately he's been focused on making a web design interface to allow me to show images on t-shirts similar to my barbaric version shown here at Ekay.com and here at: free-speech.com/City1

The basic concept seems simple, but I can tell he has advanced himself in his knowledge of scripting because he no longer acts like it is easy and marvels at getting some of the seemingly simple task to work properly. I think the biggest challenge is to tie any interface back in to a shopping cart, but we won't bother to go there for now as this is just fun and games.

Selling t-shirts online in the summer is like selling corn from a truck

2011-06-10T01:04:00.001-07:00

Who isn't familiar with trucks selling corn on the side of the road in the middle of summer, or some other vegetable. Corn is what comes to mind right away, but it could be strawberries or peaches, whatever the surplus vegetable is in your area. Running a website online with t-shirts for sale in the middle of summer is sort of like that only without the stinky exhaust of trucks in your face. We sit here and wait for orders with pictures of shirts hanging over the side of the website. People drive by and look sneeringly at our products, but eventually they will be hungry and realize that we have the cheapest shirts, widest variety and heck they need t-shirts, so they buy some.

The counter-intuitive aspect of all of this is that thousands of other people also need t-shirts in the summer, so the best products are often out of stock as the summer wears on. So order weeks in advance of your event if you need something different or a wide variety of t-shirts and colors, because it may not be available at the click of a button in the middle of July.

T-shirts ARE forever

2011-06-01T22:32:00.000-07:00

and ever. How many years will a t-shirt design stay around in the closet or drawer? Eventually a t-shirt may end up in Africa or in a thrift store. They inevitably come back as vintage clothing, so statistically speaking the t-shirt you wear today may still have a couple of lives left in it. T-shirts are forever.

What IF... T-shirt printing for free

2011-03-29T09:06:00.001-07:00

What if I calculated the cost of printing and the cost of t-shirts wholesale and removed the profit requirement from my scenario? I am pretty certain that I am working for free already, however, once I assume all of the expesnes, including taxes and other shit that is involved with running a business then I am lucky to have a profit. So What if...

I printed for FREE?

I don't mean totally free, because somebody has to get paid for doing the work and the shipping. Either children in Asia do it or sweatshop workers in your backyard do it, somebody has to print the actual t-shirts. Machines don't run themselves and there is no totally FREE LUNCH. Printing is a craft and somebody has to handle each printed t-shirt that has a design, no matter where you are from, but what if we printed for non-profit institutions for free? Personally I am only in business to make money because I have to be in business to stay alive, FUCK BUSINESS for business sakes! I hate business just to make a profit, it sucks, it takes all my time, I feel greedy, but I have to do it to make money to pay my mortgage and make sure my kids can go to college and have food to eat... I'm sure we would all rather be doing something else than playing this stupid game called making money.

The bigger picture is what I am talking about here. I can get paid by running my business as a non-profit and my long term goals are covered by insurance anyway, like if I die or something. So my biggest expenses are to pay taxes and work for the man, which make my life difficult. As a non-profit my tax profile might shift to a simpler profile and in the end breaking even is where I end up anyway. So why not be a non-profit and transition my insurance and basic expenses to that scenario. Is is reasonable to think my business could fit into a non-profit scenario if I am still planning on being paid a basic salary to cover my expenses? Does a non-profit simply mean that the additional funds a company may make get turned back into the company at the end of the year? Not sure.

Let me assume that you are a potential customer of t-shirt and t-shirt printing. If you provide me with printable artwork and you are not unrealistic about the job, then I can get you the lowest price on printing and still make enough money to survive. My problem is that I have to deal with customers that give me crappy artwork, they are potentially fraudulent and don't really know what they want to begin with. This stress is why I have to mark up my prices have to have a padding in them currently to absorb the potential for losses, credit cards etc..., but if I was printing for free then I can dictate the terms of my work and not be stressed over the outcome as much. The company requesting the service is sort of a partner and if they want the service they have to bring the correct pieces to the table to begin with.

I don't want to under-estimate my abilities, but I do a simple job and it is t-shirt printing. No more, no less. You want embroidery, go somewhere else. You want to save the world by putting a stupid slogan on a t-shirt; you got the right place. I just want to print shirts because that is what I do. The profit motive is a fantasy anyway, unless I was going to sell my company or if I had investors. None of that here. I just want to keep my shop moving forward without the stress of the business world.

If you think this concept fits with a non-profit let me know in the comments section. Is there any advantage to the consumer who is working with a non-profit, or more correctly not-for-profit?

Hi-Density Printing and the Emulsion that makes it possible

2011-01-23T15:49:00.000-08:00

Hi-Density printing, or thick as a brick ink has always been problematic to me because of the screen making process required to have a thick enough stencil to on the screen that would allow a super thick build-up of ink when printing. I stopped at one booth at the ISS tradeshow that had a good strong hi-density screen as an example, can't remember the name of the company right now, but I was impressed with the crisp edges and durable feeling of the emulsion was. I plan to purchase a gallon of the stuff and give it a try, oh, but the good thing was that my previous experiments with the hi-density emulsion failed as I had to coat the screens many times to try and build up the thickness of the stencil. The process for this emulsion was explained as not having to dry in between coats. The way I tried high density emulsions in the past was by drying in between thick coats and it just got sloppy, messy and too difficult to expose the thickly coated screen.

Still more information about t-shirt printing and now laser versus dye sublimation

2011-01-23T14:25:00.000-08:00

Always the last on board, I am not surprised that my devotion to laser printing is finally in question. I stalked the ISS Imprinted Sportswear t-shirt printing tradeshow in Long Beach for the Magic Touch transfer paper booth. Ideally this rather expensive paper would allow me to make multi-color t-shirt designs on dark garments, 100% cotton t-shirts, and eliminate the need for detailed trimming and weeding of the print design. This is a transfer technique, which I am also reluctant to endorse, but there are situations when transfers are appropriate, and I had a quest. The quest was strong enough that I got up before 10a.m. and got a Wellness Smoothie before driving for the last day of the show to find the Holy Grail of transfer technology.

I could not find the Magic Touch transfer demonstration at the show, so it must not exist, but I did have several conversations regarding dye sublimation and I now have a better understanding of the process. I have been reluctant to use dye sublimation because when it is used on t-shirts it requires the use of 50/50 cotton-poly t-shirts, or materials that are coated with a special chemical to capture the dye in the sublimation. As I understand it now the ink is printed on paper and then applied with heat to a garment or coated object. The heat then gasses at a high temperature in a heat press and saturates into the coating / polyester and resolidifies it's structure upon cooling.

The most interesting part of this equation is the coating, which has been described as resin of sorts, which simply means a poly resin. Hmmmm. Therefore the dye sublimation inks in gas form bond with polyester, which allows these inks to bond to the many types of plastic items that are used with the dye sublimation process. The claim is that the solidified dye sublimation inks are durable, like a polyester resin. I have not confirmed if these inks have any natural uv resistence or if they require additional coatings, like polyester resin products, to product them from degradation due to us exposure.

Laser prints are typically done with pigments ground finely to be used in toner cartridges and are printed with the printer by an evenly distributed electrostatic charge the bonds the colors to the paper until they are fused by heat. The pigments themselves have a natural resistence to uv as they are particles and the transfer papers seem to be carriers with the pigments embeded in a thin gelatin coating. I have always thought the dry, non-gassing process, was superior to the gassing dye sublimation process. However, if the gasses solidify into a resin form, like the coated material that they are bonding to, then they may structurally superior, minus the uv protection to the laser prints. The laser printed pigments are held together with the gelatin or coated material and therefore once that gelatin breaksdown the image is vulnerable.

For basic transfers and t-shirts or indoor items most of the durability questions are not relevant, but when you get into imitating fired items like ceramic cups and exterior tiles the durability is relevant. Also the gassing of the die sublimation is similar to the concept of the photo-fresco process that I have been working with, only it is the process through polyester resins versus the gypsum based materials that I have been working with. This does explain why some of the results I get when combining materials work better when I have used polyester resins and epoxy as the base material and ending up with the dye sublimation might be a natural progression. I always end up in the areas that I have tried to avoid the most, so this is no different.

No Sleep Til' LONG BEACH - T-shirt Printing Tradeshow

2011-01-22T20:51:00.001-08:00

I am always overwhelmed by how much information I can find at tradeshows and the Imprinted Sportswear tradeshow has not been a let down. First off I must warn you, I don't care that much about the latest trendy cut of t-shirts, there is always something there, but in the end my customers stay within a range of available goods and when they ask for it I get it. So I can find anything and I simply add a bunch of new companies product catalogs to my product line, but not very much of it performs over the long run. However, technical details with "experts" is my way of entertaining myself and finding out how little I have been doing to expand my t-shirt printing universe.

I focused on mesh adhesion and emulsions with my questioning of the Ulano and Sefert and IT sales people. I have found out that mesh is pourous, which means it will absorb chemicals that it is submerged, or embedded in, such as photosensitive emulsions for screen printing. I also found out that there is a clear, although not optically clear, emulsion and it may be possible to add pigment (liquid) to the emulsion in a variety of colors.

My other interesting exchanges were about discharge inks and Wilflex has a discharge ink that does not emit an odor or sulfur smell and does not require the final garment to be washed before it is sold. This ink has been popular in Europe, but is just being released in the United States and I'm all in. I've done some discharge through contractors, but have avoided using it directly as the smell and toxicity of the garments remains a problem if the shirts aren't washed before they are sold. Next step is to make samples of some new designs.

Eventually I will stop referencing my work on subdomain / web blog management here, but

2010-12-06T22:41:00.000-08:00

Eventually I will stop referencing my work on subdomain / web blog management here, but since everything started here, this is where I need to wrap up the discussion. I have been tirelessly setting up my subdomains for a specific set of websites under SeatbeltBuckles.com with each model of car having it's own subdomain, like: viper.seatbeltbuckles.com and chevrolet.seatbeltbuckles.com and so on. The goal here is to be able to manage the content of my website through blogspot.com and not have to use a web design software outside of logging into blogspot and therefore I can manage multiple websites and their content with one login. So far, so good. Also I am setting up a Wordpress folder for each category of content under the domain name and testing some of the features of Wordpress directly against BlogSpot. So far the potential for one management location for the websites is a huge plus for blogspot, once I finish setting up the blogs. Time will tell.

Great it worked, subdomain management of blogs through blogspot

2010-12-05T19:36:00.000-08:00

Great, I can consolidate my blogs and use them from my domains so that there is a self-organized way to update post and keep the blogs separate. The first such project was to assign a subdomain to free-speech.org and link it to a current blog, Something Big. The following is a link to the successful setup: http://wherestheblog.free-speech.org What else can I say, Mission Accomplished?

The next step is to see if features and templates can be merged with WordPress themes.

Where's The Blog? Section 3 - Copying web content and pasting in blog

2010-12-05T12:56:00.000-08:00

No, copying web text and images did not work completely. It partially worked as it allowed me to paste the text, but none of the html or images pasted with this trick. I will spend some time now setting up wherestheblog.free-speech.org using an underused domain name to point to one of my underused blogs. Text on how to do this is once again pasted here from a Google Help page:

How do I use a custom domain name on my blog?Share
Twitter Gmail Blogger Buzz Orkut Google Reader Bookmarks » More
Comment Print Note: The setup process for newly-purchased domains may take up to 24 hours.

Publishing on Blog*Spot is the fastest and easiest way to use all of Blogger's great features. (And for free, no less!) If you don't care to have blogspot.com in your blog's address, though, you can get a domain of your own. We'll continue to host all your content as before, but it will be displayed at your new address. (Unlike FTP publishing, which requires you to buy both a domain name and a hosting service.)

Choose and Register Your Domain
The first thing you'll need to do is to choose a domain name, like example.com and register it. You can register domain names from any of a number of different registrars, and you can use .com, .org, .net or any other valid addresses. Remember: you only need to get the domain name; you don't have to pay extra for hosting service. The easiest way to register a domain is to buy your domain directly through Blogger. If you go this route, we'll automatically configure all of your relevant DNS settings and attach your new domain to your existing blog immediately.

Update the DNS Settings
DNS stands for Domain Name System, and a DNS server determines what site a given address takes you to. So far, you have a domain name but none of the servers on the internet know what to do with it yet. To take care of this, you need to do two things:

•Create a CNAME record for your blog's address, which should be a subdomain of the form www.example.com.To create a CNAME record for your domain with the DNS, associating your domain with:

ghs.google.com.

The exact procedure for doing this varies depending on your domain registrar, but you can find instructions for many common registrars here. If yours isn't listed, or if you run into other difficulties, you can contact your registrar directly and they'll be able to help you out.
•Create 'A' NAME records for your naked domain (blog.com)

Note: The following information applies to naked domains only!! If you're setting up a subdomain then this does NOT apply to you! :-)
Creating A records for your naked domain is important as it allows Google to redirect people who use in your naked domain name (blog.com) to your blog page (www.example.com). If you do not do this, visitors who leave off the www will see an error page.
There are four separate A records you will create, and can be done from the same control panel you accessed your CNAME records. Simply point your naked domain (example.com, without the 'www') to each of the following IP addresses:
216.239.32.21
216.239.34.21
216.239.36.21
216.239.38.21
Your DNS setup is now complete!

Updated Where's the Blog? blog optimization and consolidation effort

2010-12-05T12:32:00.000-08:00

I changed the skin for the front page and see that there are more options than I have been using on Blogspot.com. I looked at the gadgets and found that Amazon dominates the product gadgets and there isn't really any gadgets to link products to the blog. Here is a replublished version of this blog: http://t-shirts.org/wherestheblog.htm ,however, there seems to be some formatting issues that may simply be related to applying the new template to this blog. I do like the Dashboard for managing different blogs, but now I need to look and see if there is a way to directly feed these pages into my main websites without having to republish the blog page itself, or are all post required to sit on the blogspot.com servers? Hmmmm.

Now I'm getting somewhere. I seems I can allow Google to host my domain name for an account and then direct all of my blogs to that account, or set up separate routing for a subdomain and allow that the be my publishing for the blog. Either or both may work. I am not sure I can have multiple blogs, each with a separtate routing to a subdomain. Must check.

Ok, I see a light now at the end of the first tunnel. I can setup a subdomain on any of my specific websites and then publish that blog under that domain name but setting up the DNS to route to Google for each particular blog account. This should work to keep me from having to deal with a new software, although I really like the options available in Word Press. My daughter discovered that you can simply copy and paste from a browser into the WordPress editor and the images and html code simply show up and work. How amazing is that? I haven't tried it because I don't have much set up on Word Press yet, but I do need to test that on this blog editor.

Here Goes:
How do I use a custom domain name on my blog?Share
Twitter Gmail Blogger Buzz Orkut Google Reader Bookmarks » More
Comment Print Note: The setup process for newly-purchased domains may take up to 24 hours.

Publishing on Blog*Spot is the fastest and easiest way to use all of Blogger's great features. (And for free, no less!) If you don't care to have blogspot.com in your blog's address, though, you can get a domain of your own. We'll continue to host all your content as before, but it will be displayed at your new address. (Unlike FTP publishing, which requires you to buy both a domain name and a hosting service.)

Choose and Register Your Domain
The first thing you'll need to do is to choose a domain name, like example.com and register it. You can register domain names from any of a number of different registrars, and you can use .com, .org, .net or any other valid addresses. Remember: you only need to get the domain name; you don't have to pay extra for hosting service. The easiest way to register a domain is to buy your domain directly through Blogger. If you go this route, we'll automatically configure all of your relevant DNS settings and attach your new domain to your existing blog immediately.

Update the DNS Settings
DNS stands for Domain Name System, and a DNS server determines what site a given address takes you to. So far, you have a domain name but none of the servers on the internet know what to do with it yet. To take care of this, you need to do two things:

•Create a CNAME record for your blog's address, which should be a subdomain of the form www.example.com.To create a CNAME record for your domain with the DNS, associating your domain with:

ghs.google.com.

The exact procedure for doing this varies depending on your domain registrar, but you can find instructions for many common registrars here. If yours isn't listed, or if you run into other difficulties, you can contact your registrar directly and they'll be able to help you out.
•Create 'A' NAME records for your naked domain (blog.com)

Note: The following information applies to naked domains only!! If you're setting up a subdomain then this does NOT apply to you! :-)
Creating A records for your naked domain is important as it allows Google to redirect people who use in your naked domain name (blog.com) to your blog page (www.example.com). If you do not do this, visitors who leave off the www will see an error page.
There are four separate A records you will create, and can be done from the same control panel you accessed your CNAME records. Simply point your naked domain (example.com, without the 'www') to each of the following IP addresses:
216.239.32.21
216.239.34.21
216.239.36.21
216.239.38.21
Your DNS setup is now complete!

Blog Consolidation - Where's the Blog?

2010-12-05T12:12:00.000-08:00

I am torn between many products that overlap in one way and that is that I am the person working on them. The problem is that I have experimented with many different softwares, like blogspot.com, wordpress, simple engines bulletin board/message board and various shopping cart environments that each require login and maintenance. It's killing me when I combine that with my web development, SEO responsibilities and basic t-shirt design needs, not to mention the burden of email management and automatic form responses via 3rd party vendors and inquiries. It's not worth hiring people to manage these departments, but it's not worth giving them up either. I need a super blog, a management system that allows me to consolidate my blogging and keep all of these areas updated with new material.

For now I am going to make a Super Blog using WordPress as the ubiquitous tool for composing all of my information, then republishing each page as a static web page. I liked the idea of calling it Where's The Blog? and using that as a lead in on all of my websites, like wherestheblog.ekay.com and wherestheblog.seatbeltbelt.com, but using one software to create the pages as a master control program. Once I start this there will be no turning back. I have also used Cerebus as an email software manager, but that hasn't really worked either, but the general idea is good.

Ok, Blogspot kinda answers the blog-consolidation problem shown above with the Dashboard, but I am not happy with the look of the webpages that are created under the blogspot headings. I suppose I could research the skins available and formating potential for blogspot and work on that before I go start something new. I mean I am here already.

The first generation of Giants Torture Series T-shirts are in production

2010-10-27T00:44:00.000-07:00

I posted a bunch of designs on my websites at tortureseries.com and yque.com. Luckily I had some screens prepped and as a few orders came in I was able to ship the first expedited order today so that one person in the country, Minnesota somewhere, will be able to wear a Torture Series shirt during the game. The extras and samples are going to be distributed through my kids. I still want to go into the city and pass out free t-shirts, but I know I just won't have the time to do my work and have that kind of random fun. I'm just glad to have gotten a few orders to make me have to shoot the screens and get into production. Luckily I also had some extra Orange shirts in stock.

To expand on the concept I wanted to make a Giants candle and a Shrine with these other printing techniques. I also have to delay those concepts in favor of using the same artwork that I did for screen to make photo fresco prints to display on the Truck Gallery in Sausalito where many people catch the ferry to games in the City. I spent part of the evening mixing a batch of colors that I can use to fill in the framed print with an emphasis on Orange and glow in the dark. The black is made with atomized steel pigment which should show as rust if I choose not to coat the final product. I'll link to these later as I get them mounted on my truck before gametime.

It's done, the Giants have won and now the real torture begins

2010-10-23T21:00:00.000-07:00

The final pitch with two runners on and the Phillies sent Howard in who hasn't had a hit in the series? WTF? It worked out for the Giants as Wilson struck out Howard to seal the deal. Now the Torture series can continue. This designs seems appropriate as the number of pitchers did not guarantee that Wilson was going to be the pitcher at the end of this.

Don't Torture Me I'm Local SF Giants T-shirt World Series

2010-10-23T12:39:00.000-07:00

Crap, I lost my last post. No reason, just the season. No time to fix, but basically the shirts are practically designing themselves, starting with "Don't Torture Me I'm Local", check out the other Giants Tortue T-shirts here: TortureSeries.com. Only 3 more hours to game time and I even posted a free t-shirt, you pay the shipping, for good luck. b out

It's on! Top of the 6th Inning and tied 2-2, not without drama.

Here is the latest t-shirt design, launched on CafePress at: http://www.cafepress.com/tortureseries Fear the Beer'd, which makes fun of the Fear the Beard t-shirt that has become popular as a slogan for the closers. This game already has the bullpen in control of the Giant's pitching effort.

A Day Off from Baseball - But Never a Day off for T-shirts - Torture Series 2010

2010-10-22T10:42:00.000-07:00

I've been listening to the SF Giants trials and tribulations the final part of the season and now through the playoffs. It's been a trip, literally, and torture has been the word most commonly used to describe the experience for fans who want the team to go all the way. Each game has had ups and downs that make the game theatrical to say the least. Now I am focusing in on a t-shirt to commemorate the World Series that will be coming to San Francisco as they win the National League Championship by renaming the games to the "Torture Series" shirt shown above. I'll be posting this design on various shopping carts and websites over the next few days, as well as, offereing them for Free as long as you pay the shipping via USPS in order to use up a bunch of shirts I have in the warehouse. Check it out as I develop of list of Torture slogans to go on the back of the shirt too.

Here is the CafePress version of the "Torture Series" t-shirt.

Greenspan Bernanke Wrong

2010-10-12T07:25:00.000-07:00

Admitting your wrong when you break something or do something stupid is one thing, but being wrong in a significant way on the economy is quite another. Alan Greenspan admitted some errors when testifying to Congress about some aspect of his policies on deregulation. Here is a shirt to commemorate this statement.

T-shirt Printing added to every product on my website - New Format

2010-10-01T08:03:00.000-07:00

I am testing a new format for adding t-shirt printing online to a shirt order. Over the years I have developed a published custom t-shirt printing price list based on Levels 0-10 with each level representing a different quantity of shirts for the total order. In this way I can give discounts for bulk t-shirt purchases and since everyone is used to Levels from video games it seems like an intuitive way to show potential customers the discounts they get on custom printing as they order more shirts. Typically I use a price grid table format, but this is confusing for many customers. I have now found another way to add printing to the bottom of every item on the website by formatting a list of the levels and posting them under every t-shirt on the site that is printable.

Link here to the T-shirt Printing Pricelist Guide.

This is annoying to look at first because it looks like a long list of similar items, but I hope that it will draw each customer that is interested in printing to look below their items and check for the cost of printing without having to call. I can build discount pricing into the shirts themselves with a pricing formula without having to send the customer to a different page for ordering the printing. Now it is time to test this procedure so I can get back to printing tee shirts instead of designing web pages.

Now look at what you've gone and done!

2010-09-22T13:24:00.000-07:00

Ten years later I am still working on the basics, but it always seems like I haven't done enough. I've started the organization for t-shirts.org to match the search delivery system that Google is launching based on intuitive guidlines and vague references to the products that I work with. Now I am adding the ads to these pages in hopes that it will generate income and I won't have to direct a shopping cart and sell t-shirts directly through these pages. Most of these pages link back to my main shopping cart pages on YQue.com and it will only get confusing is I have to duplicate those efforts here. The goal here is to develop in depth topic orientated information and links through t-shirts.org without having to post all of the same information on the YQue.com site which is more of a retail t-shirt store versus a t-shirt directory like t-shirts.org .

The T-shirts Organic Organization has begun

2010-09-22T10:09:00.000-07:00

Here are the categories and links that I have made for developmental purposes on T-shirts.org - the organized t-shirt website:

T-shirts Store - for buying t-shirts online

T-shirts Artwork - Design t-shirts for printing graphics

T-shirts Brands - Hanes, Gildan, American Apparel and others

T-shirts Printing - How t-shirt printing works and the different methods

T-shirts Organic - Certified Organic t-shirts and organic cotton t-shirt brands

T-shirts Styles - For Men, Women, Kids

T-shirts Wholesale - Bulk discounts and wholesale t-shirt prices

T-shirts Academics - How to print t-shirts, how to design t-shirts

T-shirts USA - Made in the USA and USA t-shirt locations and designs

T-shirts Fantasia - T-shirt websites that break the mold

T-shirts Bands - Music and Band related t-shirts

T-shirts Supplies - Inks, screens and t-shirt supplies

T-shirts Printed - PrePrinted T-shirt designs and funny t-shirts

T-shirts Blank - Blank Wholesale t-shirts for sale online

T-shirts Bulk Printing - Wholesale t-shirt printing prices for custom t-shirts

T-shirts Accessories - Trucker Hats, Seatbelt Belts, and Panties that go with t-shirts

T-shirts Sales - T-shirt Sales and Bargains

These are going to be developed around the intuitive organization that has resulted from my midnight romp through Google. They don't have to immediately make complete sense, but there is some rationale for each section albeit vague.

Organic or Organized - that is the question.

2010-09-22T08:15:00.000-07:00

Google has gone through a massive change with the suggestive refreshing of results for searches in the drop down menu. Although I have tried many things for business over the years t-shirts are the one product line that keep pulling me back in. I've been working with this website as a t-shirt store online called, T-shirts.org, but it has done little in the way of increasing my sales for Organic T-shirts. I stare blankly at the horizon and wonder if I have put my eggs in the right basket with that website and once I reviewed the words that are associated with Google through the pull down search function I can't find hardly any searches for t-shirts organic. Now I am thinking that I should redirect my web efforts for t-shirts.org to "T-shirts Organized"

I've reviewed the many words that are associated with t-shirts and I am going to fill this page with the results. Simply put I need to regenerate these words into categories and then build my little TshirtVille on an organic platform sorted by the world of search results. Underlying this optimized organization will be the products or links to products that people need as they relate to t-shirts, t-shirt printing and blank t-shirts, my specialty.

My first step of organizing a t-shirt website is to categorize the searches. These are some general categories I have created, location, store, items, how to, artwork, supplies, wholesale, style and printing. I am working on placing the first wave of results into these categories, which were quickly associated with the phrase results of the first 100 results, so I expect this association and organization to change as I dig deeper into this project. For now I am simply going to create the categories and build pages that associate with the basic structure. Here are the words that seem to relate to t-shirts via Google. These results may be localized and formatted to fit my profile on Google, but I've got to start somewhere.

printing
design
quilt
maker
man
mockup
clipart
guys
graphics
junkie
king
land
lyrics
logo
outlet
ology
uk
pros
quilting
citynames
ville
tv
wholesaler
z
shop
shack
iwant
online
for sale
in bulk
vintage
stencils
styles
store
supplies
world
art
and more
buttons
bulk
blank
bands
blog
big and tall
by the dozen
custom
cheap
cool
café
company
clipart
china
cape cod
designer
designs
design your own
deals
direct
designs for women
east lansing
elk horn
embroidered
express
ed hardy
etc
houston
embroidery
batavia
for sale
funny
for women
for kids
for men
from movies
for printing
for a cause
for teachers
graphic
geek
gildan
grand rapids
games
galore
girls
graphic design
history
hawaii
hoodies
hangover
hanes
heat activated
hoboken
hip hop
humorous
in bulk
into quilts
ideas
in las vegas
in spanish
india
ink
in russian
in movies
japanese
junk food
jersey shore
jacksonville
junggesellenabschied
jokes
jesus
jackson
japan
made fast
mugs
made by humans
made
made in usa
new orleans
neon colors
new york
next day
nerd
norfolk
nyc
nashville
numbers
on demand
on sale
online store
order form
oil spill
plus
plain
printing machine
press
printed overnight
political
peru
quotes
quality
queen street
quick
family renunion
custom t-shirts quick
funny t-shirts quotes
football t-shirts quotes
cool t-shirts quotes
r us
rock
outlet
overnight
running
rock bank
retail
reno
retro
redding
review
bend oregon
san mateo
san jose
sale
size chart
screen printing
store
styles
sayings
san mateo
sf
san francisco
that fit
transfers
that change color in the sun
to go
to order
that say awesome
topeka
that change color
unlimited
urban
unique
under 10 dollars
under 5 dollars
usa
under dress shirts
uk
urban outfitters
united
vintage
vistaprint
vancouver
vancouver wa
vector
vector free
vintage uk
victoria
victoria bc
ville
wholesale
with sayings
with quotes
wiki
wholesale printing
with funny sayings
with logos
with pockets
with photos
websites
xxl
rock t-shirts xxl
vintage t-shirts xxl
coheed and cambria
metal t-shirts xxl
world cup t-shirts youth
mario t-shirts youth
youth
zazzle
custom t-shirts z

One thing leads to another and I need a down and dirty art program

2010-08-21T17:32:00.000-07:00

One thing leads to another and I need a down and dirty art program. I need to quick edit images from time to time to get them on the web and photoshop isn't always available. I tried the photo program that comes with Windows and I couldn't even get the image to fit into the screen to crop it. Low, Low resolution crap. No wonder all the artwork I get from people often sucks if they tried to do it with Paint. I have heard about Picassa and if this works I'll forward my customers to the Google link to quick edit their own artwork. I will post the progress as it occurs.

Except for trying to bump out the other browser when I started it and request for anonymous error tips, it seems like a harmless photo editor, for now. The program seems to recognize the following file types: jpeg, jpg, tif, tiff, bmp, gif, png, tga and raw. They each are different compression algorythms for photographic files that are often viewable by web browsers and other photo editors. The Raw format is straight out of the camera and I am not sure what a TGA file is. The first thing the Picassa did was search my computer and find all of the above mentioned file types. the sorting window looks pretty good and it organized my images by folder. I was able to open a file and crop it, as well as, apply an assortment of filters. The only save as format was jpeg, .jpg. Next I need to check the image resolution and size.

Picassa allows me to see the image size under Properties, but I can't seem to increase the size arbitrarily. I was able to zoom in on sections. I played with the contrast in the various tonal ranges and that wasn't bad, not great, but not bad. I don't see any export or halftone functions, which limits me for screen printing grey tones, but you can get a down and dirty high contrast effect by manipulating the shades. Rough Edit. Wow, I really like the soft focus when added to a high contrast funky mix. Ok, I can add text, but not that easy to find a blank space. Image posted, 15 minutes of hacking.

I don't think it will replace photoshop, but this appears to work for fun edits. Almost printable artwork.

There is an export function that takes the photo image over to another program, picnik. In this program I was able to resize the image and send it back to Picassa 3 where I saved it and uploaded the images to my website. More editing features were available in teh PicNik program and although I did not get printable artwork out of the software, I was able to convert some web images from large files to viewable jpegs. Success.

I went back later to do a design that popped in my head, "Made in America" but with an Indian Head. I found some clip art and went to work. The combination of Picassa and PicNik isn't bad to get something on the web. I can go back and fix it if it sells and needs to be printed, but this gets me in the ballpark. I would still have to charge for artwork if I received this type of file from a customer, but overall it's a good draft, possibly salvagable into a printable file. A point in favor of the program is that I actually created a folder called "New Designs" on this Acer mini computer, thus recognizing that the file may be printable. It's a good thing I don't have high demands for my artwork requirements. I am interested in the tag elements of the program, it seems like it is allowing the insertion of keywords into the image, which makes alot of sense. I wonder if those are somehow read back into Google? My next step is a web design interface that has a chance at being workable without crashing.

Alternatives to American Apparel - Wholesale Made in USA t-shirts

2010-08-20T22:43:00.000-07:00

Y-Que has promoted and sold American Apparel for a long time and there has not been a sufficient amount of focus on providing a direct alternative to American Apparel until now. I sell t-shirts all day long and despite previous problems with the stock and availability of American Apparel in the past I don't think anything will compare to the problems that a company will face with hundreds of leases and not enough cash. To be properly prepared there must be an available resource to provide to my customers that is a viable alternative to American Apparel.

We've listed and discussed various brands in the past and we will have to reconsider and promote many of them until the winner is clear. Consider Y-Que like a wine merchant who gets grapes from many sources and comes up with the best combination for a particular year.

The main brands as alternatives to American apparel t-shirts that are available wholesale are Alternative Apparel, Kavio, Next Level, Canvas, Bella, Hanes, Anvil, Gildan, Alstyle and each of them have their positives and negatives. Made in USA iss the first problem and only American Apparel can boast that, but we have found a private label t-shirt the we can have for Y-Que that is Made in the USA. The problem is there isn't much cost savings from American Apparel, but as an introductary price we are considering selling it for a straight $4.00/ea on whites and $5.00/ea on color. The label is a consideration, but I am thinking about printing a label that will dissolve in the first wash. In this way I can make it easy for printers to find the size, but the buyer of the shirt can get rid of the label by washing it. If they want to keep the printed tag then they would simply iron the space with the print.

It's not easy being Green - Save American Apparel

2010-08-19T17:19:00.001-07:00

The fact is that survival in corporate america isn't easy, especially when you sell out. American Apparel tried to sell out, everyday, and it isn't working. Selling out is the American Way, so this is an obvious path for the company to have taken, but don't get fooled again. This isn't just about the libido of Dov Charney, this is about profitability and extortion. The financiers that control the clothing industry of this country have a strangle hold on the companies that work in this country and right now is not a good time to have debt. The debt is what is destroying the stock value of American Apparel and the profitability of the company would be sufficient if it weren't for the exhorbant interest rates that are being charged to the short-term financing and covenents that are restricting the ability of the company to post a profit. I am not saying that the other realities like over-expansion and negligence on the part of the administration aren't obvious problems, but that shit happens all the time from Apple to the White House, so stop throwing stones. Face the facts that the very people that made American Apparel what it is are upset because they can't profit as much as they want. REMEMBER PUTNEY SWOPE! SAVE AMERICAN APPAREL!

Space Truckin' 1981 - 2010 Commemorative Space Shuttle T-shirt

2010-06-23T23:24:00.001-07:00

I can print this design because I feel like I own this subject. In 1981 I drove and saw the first Space Shuttle launch in Cocoa Beach Florida. The next year I had traveled back to Florida and started hitch hiking back to California. I only had $50 to my name, but I invested it all into some t-shirts, razor blades and spray paint. Then I cut out a stencil and before the second launch of the Space Shuttle I had made some t-shirts and sold them during the launch. I didn't make a profit, but I had fun and it was quite the experiment in trying to make event shirts with nothing. Now it's almost 30 years later and the Space Shuttle is being retired. I've always wanted to make a Space Truckin' shirt so if I don't make it now, then I'll never make it. I'll dig out my old photo of the first space shuttle launch too, just to give perspective on this whole thing.

Only Asian Spammers read my blog

2010-06-04T01:53:00.000-07:00

Racism is a dirty work, but am I wrong to identify that the only comments left on my blog are in an asian font. I can't even read the stuff so the only thing I can conclude is that it is some kind of asian spam. Why would people post comments on my blog in a font that I can't ready unless it was spam? No reason. I am not making a comment about asian drivers or anything, but are there that many asian people reading my blog that it is worth spamming in an asian font? I should've never have stopped the Japanese mafia from teaching me their language when I had the chance and then maybe I would understand what these comments mean. Are they selling viagra? Or is it a serious discussion about t-shirts or American Apparel. There isn't really anything to write about right this moment which is why I figure this is a good time to point out something as absurd as this. Oh, I started a new blog called, "Best Indian Food EVER! the blog" located here.

Exclusivity Be Damned - NFL loses anti-trust lawsuit - similarities with American Apparel ensue

2010-05-24T09:07:00.000-07:00

I just heard on the radio about a Supreme Court lawsuit that was settled on behalf of an embroiderer who was denied the opportunity to sell NFL gear because of an exclusive arrangement the NFL had with Reebok. This sounds simliar to the restraints American Apparel is trying to accomplish with their anti-trust behavior in that by controlling the distributors then the company at hand can control the final prices for their products. Exclusivity be damned.

American Apparel has it's own problems now, but I feel that the underlying strength of this decision is basis enough to embolden my position that American Apparel is wrong by limited the type of resellers who can resell their blank t-shirts on esoteric conditions that are beyond their control like a requirement that somehow companies can only resell their products if they are printing on them. Yet, American Apparel sells these same products blank through their own retail stores which effectively makes them an exclusive distributor of the product. All of the actions American Apparel has taken to intimidate and force people out of that sort of business has only resulted in higher prices for the consumer at the cash register and is the type of behavior that anti-trust laws are supposed to prohibit. At this point I will resume selling American Apparel t-shirts at the prices that I feel are competitive and if they refuse to sell to me then I will have to forward my case to the relevant type of legal organizations that will hopefully prosecute and limit these unfair business practices that American Apparel has been implementing. I wonder if there are criminal liabilities or only civil liabilities in this type of case?

JUST SAY NO!!!!! to American Apparel orders

2010-05-18T14:50:00.001-07:00

As the request come in for printing and shirts what should I do?

Typical request recently received:

"Please quote 300 T shirts being 250 lime green and 50 orange.
It has to be a sweat free product (made in USA works)"

Is the typical request. I could send them a link to American Apparel, which seems to be what American Apparel wants, all business for their shirts, or I could just say "NO" to the order. Or I could sell them an alternative.

The longer this issue continues for not being able to sell American Apparel t-shirts the more likely I will have to start selling alternative brands of wholesale t-shirts. American Apparel should leave the resellers alone so that we can continue to help them grow as they have in the past. I am trying not to go to the dark side, but maybe I'm on the dark side by supporting American Apparel to begin with.

What would Dov Do? American Apparel t-shirt conflict continued

2010-05-17T12:03:00.001-07:00

What Would Dov Do?

Not to take this lightly, but I have to wonder what would Dov Charney, CEO of American Apparel, do if a company wouldn't sell him product that he needed to stay in business? Would he jump up and down and yell? Would he sue for violations of the anti-trust act for unfair business practices? Would he create a competitive line of clothing and/or offer alternatives to the items that he was being restricted from selling? Hmmmm, I wonder.

Most likely Dov would do all of these things in a random sequence, but yelling would be first. He's quite the successful business person and I am always impressed how he comes from behind and ends up on top.

The yelling is a given, but after that a serious discussion would ensue with a few confidants. As far as the anti-trust issues like monopolistic corporate behavior; Dov would sue asap. My response: I'm not in a position to pursue legal action since the cost are too high for lawsuits and to get good results you have to have the time to deal with the details. However, if this truly is an anti-trust violation of the law that harms the consumer by forcing them to pay higher prices by manipulating the distributors, then the government itself may be responsible for enforcing the law on this type of matter. But Dov, like myself, would avoid involving the government into his business as it usually just creates more problems in the long run. Nonetheless, if after a legal review that the government would enforce his rights to do business then I think he would immediately bring them in with the hopes of creating a 2nd front of attack against the company denying him products.

Team up with other manufacturers. Dov has been successful in the past at partnering with others to create new lines of clothing. I currently have some competitive lines of clothing that are available and I'll list those later. The problem here is that people do request American Apparel as a specific line for their jobs and I have offered it for over ten years and I don't bother trying to sell them an alternative in the short run. Case and point:

"I am looking for a quote on screen printed t-shirts for my XXX.

I would need approx. 100 American Apparel (no pocket) shirts in assorted colors in various men's and women's sizes. I would be looking to have a small one color logo put on the front left pocket area and one larger (but not large) on color logo printed on the back. All printing would be black."

Why should I have to say no to people or try to sell them something different? American Apparel has also improved it's quality and stock availability over this same period of time and I prefer selling that brand over some of the competitive brands. Dov would not give up selling these shirts easily, but would pursue other lines in the meantime. I feel the same.

Creating a new line of t-shirts isn't that difficult, but I don't have the financial resources to back this venture, as I have done before, except maybe in White and Black t-shirts. Private labeling a basic t-shirt that matches the style and color choices available with American Apparel is not as easy as it looks. Inventory and production schedules are the largest problem, but it is not impossible. Once again, the end result would most likely have a smaller color selection anyway, but underlying style factors like fit and texture with the basic American Apparel t-shirt in both Mens and Womens t-shirts are not unique enough to be exclusive. Dov would increase his debt and liabilities to create a new line, but I personally am not willing to invest my meager earnings into wholesale manufacturing since I don't the capacity for more debt.

The correct answer for what American Apparel and Dov Charney should do is:

Realize the shortcomings of the current prohibitive marketing strategy and separate his wholesale line from his retail line cleanly so that the wholesale market could continue to exist without interference or confusion with the American Apparel retail line of basic t-shirts? No brainer. The market forces for wholesale t-shirts are then returned to an equlibrium. As well, by offering a second line strictly for the retail market, as they have done with so many other specialty products that American Apparel has made, then they would solve this problem in the longrun instead of blaming it on smaller t-shirt distributors and screenprinters in the shortrun. The printable line of clothing should be separate anyway from what is sold retail. Thus by fixing this problem American Apparel would allow a competitive free-market system for blank t-shirts to exist again for the basic American Apparel 2001 and 2102 t-shirts and American Apparel would not be so Un-American in it's pursuit of complete control of the t-shirt industry.

How the American Apparel customers are being ripped off by an American Apparel monopoly

2010-05-13T05:44:00.000-07:00

Slowly American Apparel has restricted the flow of it's products to the wholesale market to create a monopoly in the retail market for their basic t-shirts. The end result is that the consumer is being ripped off by higher prices than are reasonable for their basic t-shirts. As a reseller of blank t-shirts for screenprinting to the public I find this alarming in many ways.

Number one, these restrictions eliminate a major product from my offerings which restricts who I can and cannot print for because of the availability of American Apparel t-shirts. Two, it has affected my ability to increase my market share by being forced out of the market for basic American Apparel t-shirts. Three, it has limited my companies ability to create a profit from buying and selling t-shirts.

Is this legal? Is this right? My personal opinion is that is not legal and there is definite harm being done to the consumer so that American Apparel can increase it's profits in an unfair way. I am not sure how far I can go to fight this, but it is alarming that they have gotten this far by implementing such a non-American strategy in the manipulation of the pricing of their products to the retail customer.

Here is a link to an American Apparel retail page for the basic 2001 t-shirts: American Apparel retail pricing for the basic 2001

Many companies were selling these shirts at competitive prices from $5-8, which is the normal price for a basic wholesale t-shirt. These companies have been threatened with litigation and forced to agree to ridiculous terms in order to keep selling these items. I was reselling the basic American Apparel t-shirt here on a sliding scale based on the number of shirts a customer buys: American Apparel t-shirts online at yque.com. The basic shirt cost about $7/ea on white. How can American Apparel restrict the sale of it's products to the retail market so that it can enjoy a monopoly for the same product at an enormous retail markup. If it was a different product that it offers to the wholesale market at a lower price then I could understand, but to create a reason, "they only sell to companies that print on the shirts", then they violate this rationale by selling the product unprinted themselves. I can delve into the details later, but essentially by limiting the distribution and manipulating the distributors American Apparel is ripping off the retail customer for this basic t-shirt.

Gildan T-shirt Sale on store.BlankTshirt.com $1.35/ea - launch new cart

2010-04-05T09:13:00.000-07:00

The titles says it all. I am lowering the prices to get the ball rolling for the summer. The prices for the Gildan Heavy Cotton t-shirts 5000 are $1.35/ea on white and $2.35/ea on color. The Gildan Ultra Cotton t-shirts are $1.85/ea on white and $2.85/ea on color. Check out http://store.blanktshirt.com to place a wholesale t-shirts order for these blank Gildan T-shirts. I am still working on the shopping cart interface to offer all of the colors. I spent the weekend trying to bring the pricing and ordering structure up to speed and I am not quite done on the Gildan Ultra t-shirts, but it works pretty well for most colors. This will be my main shopping cart for future blank t-shirt orders for wholesale customers that are printing shirts or that need t-shirt printing.

Gildan Activewear - the store, the shirts, the colors and the corporate responsibility objectives

2010-04-03T07:13:00.001-07:00

History: There is a complete article on the transition of this family business to a giant t-shirt corporation here: http://www.answers.com/topic/gildan-activewear-inc

Brand: Gildan is a large, large t-shirt company that seems to be growing by using low prices and high quality standards in a effort to cover the world with moderate quality cotton. Gildan is a public company with nearly 20,000 employees. The company was founded by two brothers, Brothers Gregory and Glenn Chamandy in 1984 and it appears they relinquished their control in 2004.

Products: Gildan offers a wide range of t-shirt styles and products but we are focusing on the 2000 Ultra Cotton, 5000 Heavy Cotton, 64000 Soft Style and the 8000 50 50 poly cotton blend here.

Ordering: I offer the Gildan t-shirts through my wholesale website at BlankTshirt.com and my retail website at YQue.com

Colors: Gildan has one of the largest color selections available for affordable t-shirts. Here is a link to the pantone color chart that shows a small sample of all of the colors that Gildan works with. http://gildan.com/distributors/colorpalette/ This does not mean that every product is available in these colors, but this is generally the colors that are available. Each

Styles: Generally a boxy cut type of shirt the Gildan Heavy Cotton 5000 is the economical choice for many t-shirt printers. Surprisingly it is a decent shirt at 5.4 ounce and there is a wide range of colors. The Gildan Ultra Cotton 2000 is a heavier shirt, not super smooth, but a decent good quality strong shirt that comes in an even wider range of colors. Following these is the Gildan 50 50 t-shirts, 8400 and the 64000 which is a fashion cut style of Gildan t-shirts that are lighter and softer than the standard t-shirts mentioned above.

Sweatshop labor: Here is an excerpt from their corporate website, "No. All Gildan facilities (and contractors) adhere to our strict internal code of conduct, local & international laws and the codes of WRAP and the FLA." There is more information regarding this company and it's policies at their corporate website here. http://gildan.com/corporate/home.cfm These shirts are manufactured internationally and the corporation of Gildan appears to have a strong committment to preserving their brand, which makes it unreasonable for a company to purposefully use sweatshop labor. Based on the PR statements and up front statements I would have to take the company for it's word and read the accredidations if you need more information about this subject. WRAP and FLA are two independent organizations that have accredited Gildan in different parts of the world. The corporate citizenship page has a lot of interesting info on this subject: http://gildan.com/corporate/corporateCitizenship/codeOfConduct.cfm

http://GildanUltra.com

There comes a time when all good postings come to an end

2010-03-16T23:33:00.000-07:00

Such a time has arrived. I only post on this blog because I haven't had time to break away clearly and switching blogs would likely break my concentration on the artistic ventures I have been playing with. However, spring is upon us and I must venture off with these undertakings in new directions. Here is a batch of Frescos, in cloud form, drying in front of the fireplace. Since it will be warm soon I will no longer need to carry these brick-like paintings inside to dry. I can simply stack them along the wall outside and place them on top of each other until someday I find a way to exhibit, sell or destroy them. Hiding is also an option. I was considering hanging them today and the problems that someone would face who tried to put one of these 10-20 lb. frames on a wall. Not likely. Just not a good idea in Earthquake country.

Transfer Papers and Further Advances to Nowhere

2010-03-08T00:47:00.001-08:00

How can it be, 2010, and still transfer technology is like throwing bricks through windows as compared to screen printing. All the crap in the world piled on top of all the crap in the world and surprise, we still have a pile of crap. I am like a caveman in that I still do screen printing when all the world has passed me by for other forms of technologically advanced digital processes. Digital this, transfer that, oh, la, la, it just doesn't last. I don't always have the time to mock what could very well have been my future, but when I do I get a certain sense of "I told you so!" Frankly my dear, who gives a damn. Nobody.

T-shirts are a convenience product, that is somehow also sold as a fashion product from market to market. T-shirts range from barely a dollar in some places to hundreds of dollars in others, yet they all can be judged equally once they come out of the wash and if people will continue to wear them. Longevity is a measure of success. Like marriage, if you have survived you must be in love. People fall in love with their clothing that evolves with them and does not disappear. Transfers tend to dissappear long before they should.

Twenty years later, I wonder, have t-shirt transfers gotten any better? My kids always think that it sounds really cool to be able to print out a shirt from the computer and not have to make screens or try to count the colors in a design, because they have heard me bitch about terrible artwork and impossible prints over and over again. However, I did some test today with inkjet transfer paper onto dark and white t-shirts, and when I showed them the designs they did not say they could wear such a glossy feeling thickened object heat molded onto the t-shirts. I tried.

Why is it so hard to imitate screen printing? Screen printing must be rooted in magic and voodoo to be this hard to duplicate with computers. There is always a lot of talk about digital processes like straight to garment printing, but I fail to see the potential. Basically some companies have loaded a pallet onto an inkjet bet and then they feed and adhesive precoat and/or a white coat and then other colors onto a garment as if it was a piece of paper. Sounds good in theory, like communism or democracy, but I have enough trouble making one print, much less running one thousand t-shirts through an inkjet printer. This is the age we live in. No flying cars and no instant high quality t-shirts.

There are some alternatives and I am sure that the quality of transfer t-shirt technology has improved, but it is surprising how long it has taken to get so short a distance. Screen printing is still a dominant technique for adhering images to garments in bulk. Sure, there are some successful techniques like discharge printing that has made all over printing more bearable and wearable simultaneously, but generally we have not come very far. Shirts that light up are too bulky, shirts that are very soft are too frail, shirts that are super soft are toxic and shirts that are too cool are too expensive.

Still I must see what transfer papers are currently on the market and test those papers to see if I am missing the boat. Will there ever be an easy to handle transfer paper that is one-step, mutli-color, self-weeding, ink jet or not, that is affordable and will survive a wash through a general clothing cycle? Tell me more, tell me more.

Where did these come from? - Candle Wax Linseed Oil Prints with Teflon

2010-03-07T23:38:00.000-08:00

Ok, I know where they came from, I just am not totally sure what I was up to. - Candle Wax Linseed Oil Prints with Teflon - That is the best explaination I have. Overall these experiments benefitted from distractions, because they needed time and I am not a patient man. I hid them, as I do much of my work. Sometimes I hide things in the yard, other times in different states. Regardless, these were hid under my nose and unless I wasn't looking for my teflon sheet I would have never dealt with these images. Originally I mixed some sort of black bone pigment with a copal varnish I had made from scratch. Then I printed a 4-up set of images onto a teflon sheet and let it dry by hiding. A few months later I was still unable to get the image off the teflon as it was so I later made a mixture of linseed oil and a white pigment, titanium or some such powder, then I painted that onto the back of the other print. This did not work and I stored it again for a few more months. Next I tried putting a coat of adhesive onto a piece of wax paper and tried to lift off the image once it dried, but that did not work. So I stored the teflon and it dried some more.

Finally I needed my teflon and I found it hidden in a cabinet, completely dried. I thought I was just going to have to rub the image off and scrub the teflon experiment into the trash. I ripped off the paper, with no idea what the experiment was originally trying to prove, and it pulled the images off quite cleanly, cosidering the force of my peel. I got the rest of the goop off of the teflon with a heat transfer machine, but now I am left with these images in a sort of waxy dried state and trying to figure out if this technique was successful or not. The images attached to this post are approx 3" high and were made for transfering the images to candles with organic substances that would not pose a problem if burned.

The Failure I've been looking for - Frida Khalo Broken Fresco Revival

2010-03-07T22:26:00.000-08:00

A few months ago I found myself breaking these things and reassembling them for craft (See prior post 10 steps to enlightment through destruction). It seemed an interesting way to work with previously created works by great masters without duplicating the work directly. In fact I thought that it was a statement of sorts, not just a derragatory one, but a statement about craft. I moved out of that phase in my efforts as I tried to simply control this medium before I set me sights on breaking the pieces I was making. Most of the last six months has been spent on trying to get both an artistic and a spiritual interpretation of pop culture images so that I can get back to a the literal duplication process that I am yet to completely control. Personally I hate literal duplication, which may explain why it is so hard to achieve. My impatience is my biggest enemy and in this case it has taken me back to the broken Fresco, the mosaic fresco, made from the pieces of an otherwise decent print.

As I have mentioned previously I have had the most trouble trying to get some spiritual transliteration out of Frida Khalo and Vincent van Gogh portraits. I attributed this to the original artwork that I started with which were paintings and not photographs. For some reason I cannot get the same blurry, soul enhancing properties out of these self-portraits when I convert them to black and white images and put them through the rigors of fresco photo casting. Here is a whole batch of Frida Khalo photo fresco prints that shows how I have tried. I can't seem to leave the image and I returned by using it as a print to try and make a direct copy of the screen painting of the painting that I had made. In the casting my impatience caused it to break and before I smashed the entire piece I forced it back together and let it dry. Previously I had done this with a William Burroughs piece shown here. Again it hit me that this is the interpretive process for works done by artist themselves that are not photographic in their origin.

The best explaination I can come up with is that because the images are artistic to begin with, both in color and in composition I may not be able to transfer the visual representation of the soul spirit that is contained in photographic images. The breaking and reassembly represents my failure, but in essence it is consistent with my disgust at literal interpretation to begin with. I cannot pull anything more from these images than what the artist originally intended. I cannot channel that which is controlled by it's maker. I cannot take and reinterpret something that speaks it's own truth. I have nothing to add. My destruction of the image is acceptance of this fact and the reassembly is the duplication that I am forced to do for some other reason that I cannot explain.

Moments are fleeting and my underlying rationale for working artistically is that there is a visual language that is beyong our abilities to explain, but that artistic works individually propels our cognitive senses to new heights. I grasped a sense of abstract communication through some works at the Modern in New York and have never been the same. The works themselves were DeKooning and Pollack, but even though they were old they read this was modern, this may be the last word you read that makes sense, even though the lines did not make sense. The lines had meaning of time and by seeing these works firsthand they transcended time. The art is a craft, but the dimensionality artistic works last longer in a physical state than many other fluid crafts. In order for these literal works like Frida and Van Gogh to achieve a new meaning I need to pull from them something different. My tools are limited, but this breaking and re-assembly is sort of like the dribble that I considered so meaningful. I can only accept this because I did not contrive the meaning, it just happened and it keeps happening because I have no patience.

A cloud shrine, maybe? Hollywood Clouds Intro

2010-03-05T09:51:00.001-08:00

Here is a sample of a shrine version of the Hollywood Cloud using Hunter Thompson photo. I like it because I am not sure how I ended up at this place, but at least this looks somewhat finished. The way the layers are combining seems Japanese, and the out of character black and white photo image floats on top, yet it is molded into the plaster itself. I had already made these tacky shrine type shapes and painted them red, but I like the contrast between the red and the light blue.

I was able to make this from the reversed image of Einstein. I had to work in the negative since his hair is so white. This spiritual effect of the shadows is what I have been trying for and the cloud may be a more controllable way of getting the image to migrate as I add more pressure on the printing while it is setting up in blob form making the cloud. Not sure, but I was able to get some blur on Einstein and JD Salinger, who has been the hardest print to-date besides Van Gogh and Frida (who I have all but given up on). This is the original shrine version of the Einstein Fresco before reversing to black and white.

Here is what I was able to pull out of JD Salinger and this photo from a book cover. I am attaching both the shrine color image and the new base image for a Painting.

Le' Shit C'est Arrive - Hollywood Clouds

2010-03-04T23:05:00.000-08:00

It was a terrible day to start. The first day with sun. I cleaned and arranged scraps of prior designs laying around in the mud so that they could dry. By most accounts it was beautiful morning. I even fell for the concept that the ground would be dry and my feet would not be sullen with mud and chill. I put card board over my regular mud puddles, arranged glass plates, watered my blueberry bush and cleaned frames. Then I made a couple of frescos, Frida, with both dye inks and pigment inks, expecting that I would be able to compare the two. They both sucked and neither was what I expected, again. I turned from my work and let it dry in the sun. Hours later it was no better off than when I left it, both pieces failed to make a decent transfer and the dye inks were just strangely colored and too dark. Time wasted on high expectations. I spent the rest of the day working to offset my expectations of artistic success with business.

The real work did not begin until the afternoon and then even later. It was as if I could not think until I expelled all of the business thoughts and responsibilities from my head. I do not think I am a creative I am driven. I don't even think of it as a vision as much as my body fulfills it's task when it is ready. If I actually thought about my results I could not achieve the things that I am doing. Somehow they happen, I am just there to do my part.

I was upset about my prior work in the morning and decided to make a few more prints for fun. Earlier in the day I had stacked a bunch of paintings that I needed to frame right in the middle of my work table so that I couldn't miss them. I plan to take a batch of work to LA and sell it in my store and need to complete the pile of screen paintings that I have completed. Once I made a few prints, in black and white, I realized I needed a more complete product for my work. The cloud effect is very fragile and recently I had attempted to pour a frame of blue around the cloud to make it durable. This worked, but to make it work successfully I needed to pour the blue before I removed the first fresco from it's mold / position. I cut out several images from their frame while the plaster was setting and quickly positioned them above the images I was about to transfer. The end result was a three layer casting with a rectangular frame. I think this is the shit. Because they are celebrity pop culture icons I call them Hollywood Clouds.

These images have combined many levels of conceptual dribble that entertain my brain. I think they are silly to begin with and unexpected as the result of so much serious work. I mean puffy clouds, c'mon! The symbolixm is also a paralell to my everyday life as I have always considered the Puffy Cloud the ultimate symbol, uncapturable, and inspiring in it's elusiveness. I once had a club called "The Puffy Cloud" patrol, whose only purpose was to chase clouds and photograph them like those storm chasers that chase tornados. Hawaii by the way is one of the best places in the world for puffy clouds. Click on the image below as these three puffy cloud images dry and you will see where I am heading with this. Closer to the obv ious.

So many calls, so little time

2010-03-03T12:30:00.000-08:00

I turn down 2-5 jobs a week for instant printing jobs, but just don't have the time. The problem is that usually the job becomes more complex than it seems and although transfer technology and printing transfers seems easy, there is no accounting for the shirts required to be thrown away before the customer is happy. As such, I am testing a whole new batch of heat transfer t-shirt, mousepad and coffe mug papers. Report to follow.

Back to real work - Laser printing and transfers

2010-03-03T07:20:00.001-08:00

My entire enterprise and attempts to create something new and different could be avoided if I just worked with the methods that already exist. The techniques of transfering images to products is an industry in and of itself that I have sidestepped over the years. Evey so often I try transfer papers and materials and see if things have changed. I picked up a new laser printer, a Samsung for only $170 and am going to test it with the laser printing papers that I have for t-shirts, mousepads and coffee mugs. It's not photo-frescos, but if these papers work they will provide me with income and products to sell until the rains end and I can get back to messing up prints with plaster.

The Magic Touch paper is from a German company and cost nearly $5/sheet. I've been dying to try this stuff, but it is a mutli-step process. I'll be back with info later on how it works.

The clouds have gone away

2010-03-02T22:30:00.000-08:00

I mixed a new batch of plaster, longer drying time, but had no success. A day like today is a day to forget. More mess and less results. Basically this was an off day, but I thought about how to make the cloud type images fixed into a mount that may preserve their shape. It's risky, but I think I will tint some plaster blue and pour around the cloud in a frame to mount the image securely. The final result may be a sky type effect with puffy clouds suspended in a field of blue. For now the clouds have gone.

The risk of doing a double pour is that the new layer will seep under the side with the image and block the graphic. It would be best if I pour the blue before I separate the original print, but I only want to add the blue plaster to images I plan to keep. My present state wants to throw all my samples and rejects, but for a few, into a trash bin, clear the decks and start anew. I can't get back to painting when I am in the middle of a bunch of casting. Ideally I would split the task to different locations so that I'm not trying to do too much at one place.

Puffy Clouds appear as frames to hold iconic Fresco images

2010-03-02T12:50:00.000-08:00

I left off last night with a reference to making the vague the obvious. It sounded good, but I didn't really think about what it meant. I think it means that I can take something and make it into a kitschy t-shirt or a simplistic joke, but as I have struggled with the Fresco printing technique I keep finding new meanings for the direction that I am going in. Now I have gone on and did it again.

I have been suggesting that these iconic images are ghost of the real people and that through this process I am pulling their visual spirit back into these works. I also suggested that these were temporary in that I am no longer working with frames and the result is a super fragile piece that is only around long enough to photograph it, but noooooo. The new shape has taken on a simplistic and symbolic form of the puffy cloud.

What better shape to carry spiritual images of classic icons on than puffy clouds? Even I think it is beyond obvious to the level of stupid, but I can't deny the ridiculous symbolism and the process by which I have come upon it. Now I am going to be forced to keep the originals and figure out a method to hold the fragile shapes longer than I intended and potentially these are the final form for these pieces and this effect. Check out this group of seven photofresco prints, in cloud form.

When all else fails try voodoo...and a little wine.

2010-03-01T22:11:00.000-08:00

There is a reason why I am accepting all of these formless approaches to this craft of photo-fresco icon regeneration. Since nothing in the normal realm of experimentation can give me control of the results I am resorting to esoteric rationalizations for my methods. Today I breached a new level in conceptualization. While consuming large quantities of wine and working myself up to attempt a mass fresco casting of seven frameless images I decided to share my wine with the plaster. These are my friends, my only friends the images. I dipped my finger in the glass and dropped three drips into the approximate gallon of freshly mixed juice. Physically the wine did not change the color, but in spirit the wine represented the blood of life and a drink for my homies to make them want to appear again. Did it work? Not so much.

I used glass as my flat surface and I was able to look at the images before I pulled them from there monoprint positions. They still seemed like perfect duplications of the originals so I added water to the back side of the plaster to force the images to spread. For some of the images it may have helped and for others it simply made them darker. I am having the most trouble getting a spiritual print of Van Gogh and Frida Khalo. I've made over 10 prints of Van Gogh and nearly 30 of Frida and I don't seem any closer to success than I was at the first one. It may be that I am working from painted portraits and not photographs. It also may be that they have been dead much longer than the other icons I am working with. On a humorous note I have gotten a much more potent image of Ultraman, but Einstein has no essence in the latest print. JD Salinger is anothe bitch to print and I may have to stop here since his face is sullen and non-descript. Still it is hard to drop any character from use until I feel I have drawn into the hardened rock the feeling of their being. It's as though I am beating a drum and calling into the dark.

I don't know what I am asking for but once it arrives I know that I have it. The fragility of the originals is now a part of the process. By the time a get a decent photo of the casting the edges snap and the image crumbles. In this way I don't feel like I am keeping the spirit beyond a reasonable amount of time for their portrait. The original image becomes pieces once I have the portrait and then I can work with it in duplicate and in 2nd generation printing techniques that will never be referenced to their origin. Somehow this comforts me in that I am not capturing and controlling something that I don't understand completely. My place in this is to channel, not to control. My place is to see with castings that which I cannot create by hand. My place is to translate the vague into the obvious.

Read 'em and Weep - advance in frescoland

2010-02-28T22:39:00.000-08:00

I am moving in a direction that I can no longer call forward. I am losing reference to borders and permanence. The last transition towards elusive photo fresco portratiure was the result of having enough frames to cast the images into, which therefore restricted my experimentation. The black and white blurred images in plaster that I have been trying to make have been rectangular as a result of the wooden frames. Essentially this is a formal shape and since I feel more of the essence of the characters that I am entombing it has restricted my thinking about the final graphic, as well as, forced me to keep making frames before I could make my photo-frescos. Now, as I have developed my pouring technique I have realized that I don't need a frame to work in, I only need a flat surface upon which to work. Above you will see the first work done without the use of a frame.

A piece of misinformation I have absorbed from pop icon Albert Einstein is that while traveling the train to Princeton Einstein proposed that he could see in 4 dimensions. Although this may be fiction I have always wondered if this is indeed possible. Now I am playing with fire in that I think I can see the innards of the people whose photographs I print into these photofresco prints. The fact that I am moving away from shape and permanence only makes me feel closer to the idea that I am seeing something more than the two dimesions that make up the visual image. I am pulling from the past the persona of the individuals themselves. This is a spiritual dimension that exist in photographs, but is not conveyed through literal photographic printing techniques. Here is an image of Einstein himself.

Now that I have a clue what I am doing I am challenging my own aestetic in that my rejects may be more on target than what I keep trying to accomplish with these prints. If these images are going to be spiritual, then by definition they do not have to adhere to my constraints on what is visually appealing. My sense of composition and style is irrelevant to the final product and I need to separate my own desire to have a symbolic and good looking image from simply a read on the photographs that I am working with. Much like reading cards, I should not project what I want to see. With this in mind I have a sad looking image of Warhol and a dark image of Bruce Lee.

Things are coming around in the t-shirt world

2010-02-26T21:31:00.000-08:00

Affordable Organic tshirts, Made in the USA organic t-shirts, fashionably cut organic t-shirts and stock in organic t-shirts. All of these things seem to be coming around, finally, to where we can offer and fulfill reasonable quantities of organic t-shirts at good prices. To start with check out this Ultra Club organic t-shirt starting at $4.50/ea on white. 5.1 oz certified organic cotton, not bad for the price. Add $1/ea for color t-shirts.

American Apparel still has the best colors available, photos to follow, but the prices are higher. In the $5-7 range approximately.

The Anvil should be coming of age now and although I like the Alstyle t-shirts the organic t-shirts are never available when I need them. I am looking forward to trying the Bayside organic cotton t-shirt and possibly private labeling that brand. The price will be a bit below the American Apparel and the cotton a little thicker and not quite so soft. So stay in touch with the organic pages at t-shirts.org as I relaunch and consolidate the available wholesale organic t-shirts that are currently on the market for spring 2010.

There is no easy way to say this, but there is a funny way

2010-02-23T23:16:00.000-08:00

For more images of Photo Fresco and Screen Paintings go here: PhotoFresco.com

I get different results almost everytime I work with this process. This makes the game of trying to control my results entertaining and constantly surprising, if not frustrating. The reality is that I must not know what I am doing if I can continue to get this many different results. When I try to make a mistake I get a perfect print. When I try to get a perfect print I get new flaws. I can only say that my dry skin from mixing plaster and my messy floors with broken castings is a testament to my determination to get this right.

At one point I thought I had understood the mix and the pour and the results, but when I went back to repeat that with black and white images I've only gotten clearer and cleaner prints. I'll post the images later of the image rocks drying around the fireplace, but romantic it is not. I've only had an obsession like this a few times in the past, like when making a model for an engineering class or making a chopped bicycle when I was a kid, model cars, puzzles, car repair, to name a few. The problem with this undertaking is that the only thing I can do is make more samples. So each result leads into a new test, which leads into a missed target and a new test. I've got so many Frida Khalo Phot-Fresco prints that I get dizzy looking at them and I can't remember which test proved what.

My last test was using very wet plaster and this seems to be the right direction to go with what I am after. I am trying to get a uncontrolled blur around figures in black and white images. Sort of a halo effect. I consider it materializing the character's soul from the photograph. Maybe this is why the results are so elusive. Once I get the blurred image I can then use that to create a screen painting from which puts the color and life back into the print. (See Burroughs reference on earlier post).

I could probably manipulate the images in Photoshop and get a result that is dramatic, but the plaster Phot-Fresco printing process seems very holistic and as it is very elusive to get a good print then I think the process may be true to form for what I am after. I don't want something that I can visualize, I want some that manifest itself from the materials. This is what I got occasionally when I was a photographer and now I think I have a process that can merge that effect with rock and ink. Onward.

William Burroughs Fresco Screen Painting

2010-02-12T09:45:00.000-08:00

For more images of Photo Fresco and Screen Paintings go here: PhotoFresco.com

New elusive Photo-Expressionist Frescos - Paulson uses a pulling teeth metaphor

2010-02-11T00:17:00.000-08:00

Ex-Treasury Secretary uses "tooth" metahpor. The Bailout was Like Pulling Teeth, he said. This definitely makes teeth the news of the week. Have I mentioned the "Happy Teeth" t-shirts we sell?

Frescos Update: I've gotten different results with slightly different materials. Images shown above can be compared with a previous set shown below. The funny thing is that I was trying for more clarity. However, these results are more exciting to me as I appreciate the unexpected results when I make these fresco prints and this a result that I enjoy. When I did more photography I used to get similar effects on 35mm film with extreme overexposure while following movement. This was a style I liked but it wasn't palatable to others and I didn't pursue that style. I switched over to screen printing in college and have been making t-shirt type products ever since. Now I am back to the same types of results as I got in film, only with fresco prints.

Photo Frescos Final Beta Test - Images Posted here

2010-02-07T00:16:00.000-08:00

The last test generation of PhotFresco images are here:

The last test generation of PhotFresco images are here:

Don't get fooled again - The Greater Recession C'est Arrive!

2010-02-04T22:37:00.000-08:00

I run a business, so I am always suprised when I get scammed. Sometimes I see it coming and other times I simply act too quickly and the devil is in the details. The one thing that always seems true is that the cards are stacked against the consumer and there are endless ways to get taken advantage of.

Just like the new wines in France, Le Grande Recession C'est Arrive, bad French but the reality is that the economist in charge have been figuring some really messed up match on the economy. The Great Recession has never gone away, it just got bigger. I am refering to the revised jobless numbers and the resetting of the stock market prices. The reality is that things can't just get better because the projections are going in the right direction and they have stopped going down, especially if the numbers aren't correct to begin with. This is cooking the books for the manipulation of public sentiment. Except for the fact that eventually job losses have to slow because there is nobody left that can be fired without turning off the lights and going home. A slowing of the decline is not an incline. An incline will happen once the year to year comparisions are coming in being compared to the desperate situations of the prior years in percentage terms. A growth in the economy would result from adding jobs and not reducing less or fudging the numbers. The Greater Recession is now what it should be called, because none of the media are willing to use the word Depression and they "want" it to be different than the 1920's.

As far as getting scammed goes it was with Star Ford in Glendale. They switched in and out the sales guys when I was buying a car and I signed a contract that did not represent what I thought was happening. Due to the fancy debits and credits the car that was suppposed to be paid off by Star Ford of Glendale was valued at $100 and they added the cost of paying off my car to the new loan. Does this scam have a name, besides "Screw Your Best Customers"? That was my 4th car from this dealer so I didn't expect to get scammed since I trusted them. I attribute part of my failure to recognize the scam to the switching of sales people and negotiating with a man in a back room who never showed his face. I call this the MSRP , Multiple Sales RipOff Pros. I've filed a complaint with a Consumer Advocacy Group and since these sales reps really don't seem to give a crap I will eventually have to sue them for stealing my trade in vehicle. Whatever you do, Don't Buy A Car From Star Ford in Glendale or any other Star Ford for that matter.

No, I did not have an advance copy of the Obama Speech

2010-02-01T00:06:00.000-08:00

I know, the lead on on my last post was similar to Obama's tooth analogy. What can I say? Great analogy makers think alike. There ends the similarities. Also since my last post J D Salinger has died. I am inclined to make a design, but the best I've got is to post a picture of him with the word "FUCK" below. Like this.

Two funny items about JD, besides the fact that Catcher in the Rye preceded the beatniks and his reclusiveness added to the mystery of his character, was that in coming up with a name you have to be both sarcastic and non-glorifying in order to add consistency to the design. I couldn't do a simple "Never Forget" design as I have done with so many other images. Secondly, I was reading the unauthorized Wikipedia.or bio on JD Salinger and one of his wives went on to marry Charlie Chaplin. For no reason I had been doing a Charlie Chaplin screen painting and will post the image here:

Writing is like pulling a tooth, or worse.

2010-01-26T00:59:00.001-08:00

Writing is tough to do. It requires concentration, skill and enough sobriety to be able to read through the slurs. The ideas are easy to come by. I have an abundance of overwhelming conceptual dribble that pulls your brain into a struggle with reality to the point that I have to try and explain it to others. I know the world would be a better place if we did not have to prove things to each other, but without a confirmation that our ideas exist then we are without challenge to existence. The point here is that I have teeth that need my attention, but I would rather suffer through the pain than deal with it, however I cannot deal with the pain that if I do not write I will pass on the very point of existence.

The original ideas that I was so concerned about have now been lost due to this distraction listed above, but I am writing and that is the underlying requirement to conceptual transmigration of ideas. Part of the concept / struggle that I am dealing with is the chemical difference between dyes and pigments. Techically it isn't relevant to much and not worth discussing, but on a conceptual level I find a paralell with my earlier concepts. I have always been amazed at the process of photography as much as the results (argggh today I dropped a digital camera in the mud and screamed) that are shown in their final form as silver prints on paper. The idea that the underlying molecular structure of the silver allowed these items to be interpreted artistically was an early part of my conceptual misunderstanding of composition, since composition on a moleculer level is truly the ultimate determinate of the final visual composition. The separation of the molecular to the conceptual is where we are delusional and ultimately duped by chemical based arts.

The reason why photography is valid as an art form is that is no less chemically dependent than painting on the final product. The craft required to make photographic prints is far more complex, but then so seems the honeycomb to the ant hill. Underlying all of these process, including the biological ones, we are in essence dealing with interpretation as the abritrator and therefore we have the problem. ART is not with the making, but with the viewer and chemically we are on the same level as the ant.

I come to this point as I am struggling with where I am and where I how did I get here. I continue to see large paralells with my earlier artistic endeavors which reinforces the idea that when you are younger you should just work, don't ask questions, just work. The work will take you where you want to go, not the questions or answers to questions. Then later you will have something to look at and consume. Now I am at the point where I can deduce that in 20 years I have not gotten very far. I have stopped or I have been in a loop or I am further than I realize or there is no where to go. That last sentence was really fun. I am going to post some pictures now of a variety of works that show that even if I have had 20 years I still cannot escape my own astetic and every thing I make ends up looking a certain way.

What Have I Become?

2010-01-24T10:23:00.001-08:00

These are trying times and I must admit that without huge profits the toiling that is required to keep a business running over the years often removes the fun and joy that having a job should include. I don't like having to be happy that I am still in business as an accomplishment like somehow I have climbed Mount Everest or survived a fall from a tall building, but this is the way things are in the United States in 2010. Especially for those of us in business on the ground, those of us who don't have deep pockets or a govenment bailout, those of us who are not too big to fail, but are too small to care about. Many are gone and the leasing agent for the property is the only one standing around telling the story of the businesses that once were.

I've kept my head low and moved through the crossfire of this economic downturn. I've modified pricing, reduced hours and streamlined my services to limit my exposure to risk, but I have never wanted to be in business just to be in business. As such the slowing economy has forced me to go back to the things I enjoy, to create. In the old days, the nineties, during the off season/winter months after Xmas, I used to take up my screens and play with canvas. For awhile I even used to sell my paintings on the street in San Francisco as an artist until the spring returned and t-shirts came back in demand. At times I look back on those days with nostalgia and wonder just What have I become? Why haven't I turned my business into a successful art gallery or continued to build on my talents instead of scraped for pennies in wholesale t-shirt barrel?

To some degree I have used my business to broaden my skills, but there is always a commercial element that cheapens the results. I always feel like I have to sell or create sellable items. Now I am driven deeper into this valley by having merged my printing with painting and I have finally found the right combination of art and merchandise that entertains my brain in the process. This must be what I have been after all along, or this is simply the result of being thrown back into an economic downturn that lasted longer than one winter break. Usually I don't get to finish my projects because the snow melts and the business returns, but not this time. Last year I waited until spring like Bandini and I didn't have to drop my brushes and return to the Mill. I just kept mixing and painting and stretching and printing. I trained and thought and tested my materials. I discussed the process at length with specialist here and there. I found the right materials that combine economy, color and texture in so many ways that I don't know where I started and I am not sure where I am. This is why it seems like I am at the right point to name, produce and promote these works which I currently call "photfrescos".

The images shown on the linked website is not the most recent work, but some of the results of my summer experimentation. I think I have reached a new horizon by dealing with and overcoming a fragility issue, as well as, going back to the drawing board for creating original artwork that I can use for making these "photfrescos". I don't think I am at the end, but I need to move into a production phase or I won't have enough time left to make the final pieces that need to be created to show this type of work. Basically this item is a faux ceramic, plaster based, print that is made from photographic artwork. In this case the artwork is screen printed paintings, or screen paintings. The pigments or dyes are merged with the plaster in a wet process that often adds back into the work a texture, but also allows me to produce tactile prints that aren't like flatwork and don't feel temporary. I'll provide some photos now that I have explained what I am after here.

In the meantime I am also developing the website for t-shirts and expanding the product line, but since things are slow, I don't feel the rush to get things done. Check out my progress on expanding the cheap blank t-shirt wholesale line here.

T-shirts are to Xmas what Fur is to Summer

2009-11-20T11:43:00.000-08:00

Surprisingly the above statement is not true, it just sounds good. During Christmas I actually sell a lot of t-shirts. I am always surprised by this, but the nature of the t-shirt, printed or blank, is ubiquitous. I have been selling more long sleeve t-shirts this year and I think I should pump up the presence of Thermals, but generally speaking t-shirts work well for people designing a gift and printed shirts with wacky prints continue to work as presents. This year I have been focused on strange animal designs that seem to be following a trend created by Brit on the Flight of the Conchords with his goofy animal shirts. It always looks like his mother purchased his clothes and he has never gotten around to updating his wardrobe, thus a trend.

This blog must move - Evict, Evict, Evict

2009-11-10T10:11:00.000-08:00

I like talking like a droid. The commercials and sounds remind me a fixated robot on Dr. Who that is chasing me down a hallway. Terminate, Terminate...Anyway, it doesn't make sense to keep talking about the Droid and my Verizon / AT & T exploits while I search for the perfect wireless communication system / combination of services. Unless I am discussing t-shirts and I forgot to mention the 2-color droid shirts that the Verizon store representatives were wearing for the first few days. Who printed those? I want that job. I did print the original Xbox t-shirts for the promotion when those came on the scene and a couple of jobs for a company named Ableton, but I missed the call on my AT&T phone when Verizon called for a quote on that job. Simple design, nothing flashy, just a graphic text logo. pic to follow.

I will be moving this blog to an old domain I have like BillyTs.com to continue these trials and tribulations. This blog is supposed to be about t-shirts, not cell phones, so bye bye.

What if I threw my Droid at a wall, would it smash it? or could I get a new one?

2009-11-10T00:47:00.001-08:00

This commercial implies that I can call on a robot or a Godzilla like character if my Dumb Dumb navigator makes me angry. Is this true?All the more reason to buy a Droid before we find out the bugs.

Showdown at the Verizon Corral

2009-11-09T23:44:00.000-08:00

Today was the day I had to throw-down at the Verizon shop. I had been led into testing multiple phones on the basis of 30-day trials and so I did. I've now spend many afternoons in the local store at Corte Madera testing and returning the items I didn't like, Samsung with Vindows, Netbook with Wifi and a variety of other phones that did this and that. Now that I am somewhat satisfied with the Droid, which I was unaware of when I started this escapade, I am faced with multiple accounts and some lousy free phones that looked good when they were "free". Free is a word for nothing left to lose and since those phones weren't really up to speed my wife and kids didn't really care for them and we have been switching up since day 1. Finally they must've gotten tired of this and since they give me a different sales person each time I show up it has usually required me to call up the manager to get the switches approved. Today they gave me the same guy, the problem solver guy I assume.

Simply put they didn't want to let me dump or trade my Blackberry for a phone my wife would want since it had already been switched out from a Windows based Samsung Cell Phone / PDA to begin with. WTF! Why didn't they say, limited switching or that we are going to make you yell to switch again instead of "go ahead and try this phone and return it within 30 days if you don't like it", eh? The funny thing about this story is that the "problem solver" went over to a sign on the wall and pointed to it like they made me read that before I agreed. I don't think so. Take down the sign and hand it to customers then. If I am correct I think I have several legal points. Verbal agreements are binding too. F that shit about a sign on the wall. They brought out a printed copy upon demand, but it took a long time and basically it was no agreement, only the things the sales people are supposed to explain.

Here is the legal point. The sign says you can only exchange a phone once in the 30 days, however it doesn't say what happens afterwards. They tried to imply that it meant that I was forced into a 2 year agreement or that I would have to pay the retail price of the phone to turn it back in. No so fast. An agreement that is not direct on the effect of a termination within the terms of the 30 days does not in debt the user to a contract or a purchase for products that are being returned. Moral of story, is terminate and return all products instead of doing an exchange. With a termination you won't have to yell as much and the sales guy will bring the manager out quicker to upsell you on some other product. Most corporations are really just legal arrangements created by Gangsters and they just give people jobs to help them screw people with a smile, while the real culprits are coming up with new ways to rope us into contracts and obligations. In the end you may have to act like a Gangsta to not get screwed, no guns, just logic. I like Verizon, but I don't want to give them more credit than they deserve when they start pulling out the friggin' wall signs as if I agreed to that because it was hanging on the wall. LOL.

Final part to the story is that I had confused the pen I had scribbled some notes on in my pocket with a pen of my own and the "problem solver" proclaimed it was his, however, I could have it. Sensing a contract I looked at the pen closer to make sure it wasn't mine, then handed it back to him. For all I know if I had taken the pen I might've been suckered into a 2 year contract for the ink or worse. Luckily I found my pen in my pocket, that looked similar, then went back and shaked it in his face to show him I was only slightly confused and I did not want his pen. Congenially, he answered, "that's a nice pen", and I left proud that I did not fall for the old "take the pen, owe the next 2 years of my life to the Mob" scenario.
Enough with business;
Viva La Droid!

I've got the Droid now what? Tethering...

2009-11-09T09:49:00.000-08:00

I showed up at the Verizon store at 7a.m. and was the 9th person in line to get the Droid. It was a light rain and my bagel was damp, but that didn't matter. I hadn't been this excited since the batman costume was available for my 5th birthday around Halloween. One potential Verizon Droid customer in the store was dissappointed when he determined the droid may not synch with a Mac home computer, but overall the crowd seemed happy to dump their Blackberry for the bigger screen and keyboard. My daughter wanted one too, but she wants everything new and shiny.

Now I've got the phone and all seems well, except that it eats up batteries and the screen may be getting looser from use sliding it back and forth to use the keypad. I'm about ready to port in my AT&T phone number, but I'm not 100% convinced this phone is going to allow me to tether my laptop to the internet without having to pay an extra $30 a month. I've downloaded an FTP app and setup my Gmail account to access Google, but I didn't instantly get access to all of my Google apps like Adwords and Adsense. I may be able to reach them through a browser which with the bigger screen makes the web more accessible.

Tethering the Droid: Here is what I've found out so far. JuneFabrics has a software for this here, JuneFabrics, but once I attempt to download the software it claims that I can't because it is not supported by the Droid / Verizon. I may have to manually download the file and transfer it over. Basically I think I can do most of my network solutions by simply FTP, email and Web browsing, but for the special circumstance when I need to print a label and communicate with other software I feel this may be too difficult to manage on the Droid or a Blackberry or an Iphone, but I can't afford another $30 a month. This always brings me back to a high tech phone is still only 1/2 a computer and more of a fun expensive toy when it comes to doing anything useful. If I could spend $30 a month and have internet everywhere, then I wouldn't need these fancy phones. It really is the contracts I hate for these services more than the money. I hate being locked into 2 years for something that will most likely be free and or cheaper in a matter of months. Other Droid Tethering articles

Will the Android at Verizon change my life - or turn me into a robot?

2009-11-06T05:32:00.000-08:00

Personal Day: The Motorola Android Droid Phone is coming, The Motorola Android Droid Phone is coming; It's coming to cut you in two. It's on the way, it will be here today, it's coming just for you.

Today I am going off at 7am to buy the Android at Verizon and test the phone service and internet capabilities of this phone. I've been working over the last month on finding the best solution for my multi-tasking, driving, remote working business orientated lifestyle and have been captivated by the ads for this item. Needless to say I just want one to try.

I've got a BlackBerry in my pocket now. I've tried the Samsung Windows operating system phone and Apple Iphone and Ipod through Wifi. I've got a netbook and have tested the Mi-Fi card, as well as, the pci style car for internet connectivity. I've got AT&T phones, Vonage, Jfax, and a Magic Jack and have tried Skype. Where will it all end? Hopefully here, with the Android.

My problems are legion as I need to download files for artwork from different warehouses without the internet, process email and orders via a secure connection, take pictures of samples and send them to clients, update this blog and get decent phone reception. I like the idea of using a phone for my tether to the computer, but the additional cost seem high for the service and if I can combine it with a phone then I would feel like I am getting the right level of service for my money.

I suppose no phone can solve all my problems, but since I spend much of my time working on Google anyway, Analytics, Adsense, Searching, Google Checkout, Maps and more, then it is possible that this may provide a smoother internet when I want to use their services. That may make my other issues irrelevant as I go forward with my business, more on Google through the phone should substitute many of the things I have to use a computer for remotely anyway.

The way it is....Not the way it was - Frankie Say Relax Don't Do It

2009-10-19T03:44:00.001-07:00

Just when you think you've paid you're dues you find out you've been dumped. That's the modern web. You can't count on anything. Par example, I have been printing this Frankie say Relax shirt, which has haunted me from the Eighties. The style is Garrish, Large block letters, the design is ubiquitous, in fact the word Ubiquitous came from this shirt. We wrote about it, sold it cheap ( to keep it real ). Then some television advertisement comes out with the shirt featured in it and it starts selling rather well online. All of a sudden I can't even find my links on the web in Google (I haven't bothered to check Bing yet). WTF. How does Google go about dropping people and juggling content and more importantly this reinforces the idea that real-world information is completely edited by strange coincidences.

It really doesn't make sense when I know I have the best printed t-shirt for this in the most colors, the cheapest price and all and all the most authentic version of this item around (I even hated it in the eighties, which is why I like it now). Overall I'm not super upset for this pariticular instance, but it is a good example since it is Halloween and I think a bunch a people want this item. I'm more upset at the unpredicatable nature of the beast within. Here is the write up we gave this item years and years ago:

"Set the dial in the wayback machine to the summer of 1984 and listen closely. That sound you hear is Frankie Goes to Hollywood's one and only hit "Relax". And associated somehow with the song are these shirts. Frankie say relax-- what the hell does that mean? Listening closely to the lyrics, we get the impression that it has something to do with what the Romans called "coitus interruptus", which translates in to english as something like "extremely frustrating". Why would you want to wear a shirt that encouraged such a thing? Beats the hell out of us, but they sure were popular, and if like us you weren't very well dressed that particular summer, this is your chance to make up for it. Buy several and take 1984 with you wherever you go."

A rather nice piece by our now deceased staff writer. Even the photo shot in our store is a real customer in a real store, not pretencious or overbearing at all. Nonetheless, this CafePress, Zazzle, Amazon, Ebay Bullshit dominates the web and keeps giving people crap. I know we aren't the best at everything, but I know we are the best at somethings and most importantly culturally relevant historically correct kitschy low-brow humor is our thing. This Frankie Say Relax shirt is essentially that and the fact that I can't find any reference to this item just goes to say that there is something wrong.

Is Y-Que banned for adult content? It really doesn't matter because there is no answer to this type of problem in a complex world of linking. I just have to go back and decide if it is worth it to rebuild from scratch something that should just be there in the mix, but that has disappeared, like Robert Dinero as Tuttle in the Movie Brazil. Not much difference. Just don't try to fix anything and your life should be fine.

If I have to keep rebuilding web pages just to stay in the mix for a public service type message like Frankie Say Relax then it makes the web seem like too much work to keep things "live". Balloon Boy is a big deal, but how many people are looking to dress up like him on Halloween (maybe I will), but he's so non-descript. Darn. The bigger issue is Frankie was a good Halloween costume, but now I've got to push on to Xmas since my main design has been mysteriously vanquished. Maybe it was a Mystery Shopper (whatever that is) and the Mystery of Shopping for a t-shirt that was soooo obvious confused them and it was edited from existence.

By the way, I spent an hour the other night trying to find an original version or image of the "Touch of Class" transfer that was famous in the 70's as a transfer. Can't be found. No where. If you have an image of this please send it over for historical purposes. On the plus side, I was researching the origin of the Mudflap girl and actually discover that Whiz Enterprises in Long Beach created this icon of our Modern World. I consider it the only true American female Madonna representing Sex versus Virginity. To think that being placed on Mudflaps, the dirtiest place on a truck, made that image famous is even more amazing. But the internet did lead me to an answer of an otherwise missing link in the world of Graphic Art. God Bless the Mudflap Girl.

It's just a game called Bizniz - that's Business or (Busyness) for the rest of us

2009-10-16T02:14:00.000-07:00

Every business is the same. Cost of products, overhead, expenses and the creation of a product that people want to buy or use. Ideally there will be a profit to justify the effort, otherwise it is what it is and that can also be called "Busyness". Once we boil down our personal efforts and realize that staying in business is just a way to stay busy, then the shit hits the fan and the ends may not seem to justify the end. Who wouldn't want to do something else than to trade goods and take risk with very little potential for financial benefit? I only bring this up because the word on the street is that the hoopla about a recovery seems false at it's core. I was at my dentist today, Dr. Randolph Yip, a family dentist who also offers Cosmetic Dental Care in San Francisco, and it was very clear that even his customers are delaying dental care because of losing their dental insurance and employment, thereby affecting the bottom line of his business. Yet, simultaneously the stock market is up 35% this year???

The unemployment rate is still rising and in the end the net effect of more people being out of work will remove cash from the retail world and thereby continue to slow the potential for profit for real-world stores. Facts are facts and the fact here is that the stock market is a projection of better days ahead for some of us. If I had the time I would detail a rationalization on why the stock market is an accurate barometer and if we all believe then it's predictions will come true, but I have loss my innocent optimism for such folly. The only way I can accept the numbers is by assuming there is a major detachment between the reality of peoples lives and the numerical statistics that we tend to gauge our lives by. Speculation is a beast that we have incorporated into our capitalistic system, which is ballsy to say the least. The only way we can say that a 35% increase in the stock market is rationale is to recognize that the market was oversold before this rise began. Otherwise we have to reach the conclusion that it is now overbought. Regardless, in the real world of business the types of people who have lost jobs are not finding an equal number of jobs available for every 100 points that the market is rising. There is no industry replacing what has been lost. There is no super product that we are making that will provide us with a backbone to rebuild the economy and provide mass employment. We are wishful, but these are not the times for mass delusions.

The magic answer to the economic problems is not to give up because the facts don't make sense with the reality. Everyone needs to crunch their own numbers and find a way to survive. I've turned a lot of corners and have somehow made ends meet over the years and realize that change is required and our old paradigms simply provided for survival, but that is no longer a guarantee as we move into a new era. I have always believed that creativity and inspiration are the essence of individual success and that translates into societal success. Trying to interpret that for our current times is like a fly swatting itself. I like to work on several different levels and mix the results. I feel like my art influences my skills and my skills give me something to do, which in the end is my business and marketing my business keeps me busy and so on.

My current problem is that I don't believe that the market reality doesn't match the real-world factual reality. At the same time I have been running ads on my websites and find that I get more business when I run ads that often times show my competitors. This is a real problem, because when I cut my ads I am cutting my revenue which helps supplement the cost of my web presence. My basic assumption is that by redirecting traffic to my competitors I may be losing business, but the opposite seems to happen each time I stop running ads. I don't want to believe the facts, but more ads seems to equal more business. I don't have a full-proof way to test this because my main revenue stream comes from my main website at yque.com. Is there any rationale basis for this?

My conclusion is, if it is true that more ads equal more business, that by running ads I am providing a form of comparison shopping. In fact I think I will rename my ads and encourage my competitors to publish on my best web pages as a way to provide comparison shopping. I assume that the people advertising must have the most agressive pricing and products or they wouldn't be advertising to begin with, so if I can beat them then I am more likely to close the deal. This is my Mad Men moment when I push a new concept onto the market. Most likely other companies will benefit from this more than me since I work in a niche that is like a guy selling watches on the street corner, but WTF, it doesn't bother me to be the Guinea Pig for other businesses, I'm used to it. Packaging is the key so I am going to rename my advertising sections as Comparison Shopping Links and push forward in getting more competitors to sell through my spaces. I still don't totally understand if this makes sense from the customers standpoint, so if you have any ideas on this please send me an email or post a comment. thnx

Nobel Prize Winning Chia Obama

2009-10-11T01:21:00.000-07:00

It is never too late to come out with another Chia and it's never too late to make fun of a controversy with a t-shirt. The Obama Chia is way crazier than any other Chia and it won't be around for long since the major seller of the item CVS Pharmacy has pulled the item. Now we are going to be left with ad after ad of the Obama Chia kinda like Head On or whatever that stuff was you are supposed to rub on your head. I do want one of those Snuggie blankets though before it gets too cold around here and they run out. Obama may definitely be the first Nobel Peace Prize winning Chia. Fact Check.

Pantone Color matching for T-shirt printing - A great place to start, but...

2009-10-10T09:26:00.000-07:00

Yes and No. Yes t-shirt printers and match pantone colors and many have complex systems and ink mixing machines that help with the process. However this is only reasonable for large jobs. I've found that even when you do match a pantone color for a print job the inks can look different wet than dry and surprise it's still not exact. Also the color of the shirt next to the ink can affect your eye which changes the perception of the color. Mixing a pantone color for screenprinting also must take into account that the person using the pantone book should use Uncoated reference chips and not coated. Screen vibrancy is nothing compared to flat cloth, so don't think that a backlight design shown on a computer is going to look the same. In fact, I think it often looks better in ink on cloth, but that is a matter of opinion. Pantone numbers are great references for screenprinting but they only put you in the ballpark. Always think of pantone colors as a range of colors or as a reference for the rest of us. The final result will be hue on one side of the color or the other. Paper printing is different and Pantones were created for that industry, which explains the difference. Screen printing is like starting a fire with two rocks compared to the detail and accuracy available in offset printing. Here is a link to links for Pantone Color systems.

Cheery OH and the Friggin' Libor Bank Rate

2009-09-24T23:06:00.000-07:00

0.68, can you believe that? Hell know. I woulda never thunk it, but it is true. The Libor is at a historic low and you should let everyone know that. Why? I'm not sure, but I am sure that it affects a lot of shit and the more people that know about it then the more people that are completely caught up in a world of isolated numerical facts that will be able to eventually bore each other to death. God Save the Libor. Oh, and I am printing this shirt with the daily libor rate printed with the date. Long Live the LIBOR!

Photo Fresco Mosaic Buddha - 10 Steps to Self Enlightment through Destruction

2009-09-18T11:36:00.000-07:00

Mysterious Crystal Cube From Buddha for Photo Fresco Destruction

First off I am not sure where this will end. Every time I turn the page, thinking that I must be near the final product, I find a new twist or turn that makes making these things intrinsically divine. Today I found a crystal cube laying in the ground when I was looking for something to break my fresco Buddha print on. The crazy thing is that it appeared that the leaves around it were pointing to it or spelling some word in a Hebrew or Japanese font. Silly me, but if you have any idea if the leaves surrounding this "crystal cube", for lack of a better word, might spell something then leave a comment below. Otherwise it did make me look twice and simply pickup the "cube" in order to have a hard surface to break this photo fresco print on.

Photo Fresco Mosaic

So now what do I do? It's not easy to drop the Fresco, but it is kinda fun knowing that I can put all the pieces back together again. Here is a link to the Photo Gallery showing the Assembly of the Photo Fresco into a Mosaic of sorts. Here is an image of the Now Final Product:

Photo Frescos Return via Warhol Stolen Art Heist - Merge into Mosaics

2009-09-17T11:35:00.000-07:00

Kareem Abdul Jabbar PhotFresco Mosaics in Reverse Order from Original Stolen Warhol Painting

Click for Gallery of complete Set of Warhol Stolen Paintings
This sequence of images show the image progression from digital photo to PhotFresco Mosaic

Photo Fresco Warhol Painting Mosaic Gallery Images here.

It's a long story from a place very far away. I have been experimenting over the years with merging photography with plaster to create plaster prints that are theoretically more permanent than some other mediums like Florentine Renaissance Fresco paintings survived well because of the use of plaster with the pigments. Most importantly the blending of color that occurs with wet plaster mixes pigments in a marbled way that changes as it dries and often creates something not exactly like the original.

Here is a PhotFresco version of the Warhol Kareem Abdul Jabbar Painting that was stolen in LA

As a photographer I sort of hate literal duplication of images, which is why screen printing is generally hack work that I have to do to make a living, not exactly the most thrilling task on earth. I've mentioned this many times here and we don't need to go there, but with mixing a photographic image into plaster I enjoy the duplication process as it makes the image seem more painterly, yet takes advantage of the microscopic detail that only photography can provide.

Original Warhol Painting of Kareem Abdul Jabbar from digital Crime Alert Poster of the 11 Stolen Paintings

When I was a photographer of sorts, traveling around the country in the eighties with 35mm cameras and black and white film, I realized that I enjoyed blurry photos more than sharp detail. This led to the conclusion that my photographs really didn't work for most people because it took enjoying the sense of motion that I was getting and basically it just wasn't worth showing people photos or trying to make a camera act like a paint brush in black and white. I moved towards more commercial and graphic endeavors like screen printing and eventually stopped using my own images in my work.

Over the years, as a screen printer, I've delved into Warhol style paintings and sold quite a few on the streets of San Francisco, matching celebrity and news images into color schemes on canvas and stretching them on wood. Fun during the off season of t-shirts, but I stopped as I started doing bigger works and later I just got too busy printing t-shirts. A few years back while making plaster lamp bases I started molding images into the work. Nothing has worked successfully, but every now and then I got a glimpse of where it could go and what it could be. This year I sort of got somewhere with transfering images into wet plaster and building molds that are self-contained frames. This is always interesting as a process since it goes from a wet process like photography to a dry process like a print, but it is cast in plaster which makes the final product also like sculpture.

This leads me from where I began and to where I am. I have always tried to avoid Warhol style work unsuccessfully. It's terrible because I like the merging of photography with painting and the people on the streets loved it. Personally I thought it was demeaning to do portraits of famous people, but the impact of the images was overwhelming. I was not a painter and I used inks in my printing that were also t-shirt printing inks, but more and more the images were attempts at making something that people liked and I just didn't get that far away with painting to make it somthing different, but it worked for selling paintings in a basic way and I did it over the years. My larger work was an attempt to mix images to use smaller screens and make something larger by randomly printing images all over the canvas. It was fun, but nothing like the Pollackian style that I thought it was. Later I found that only one or two images worked just as well as 50 images and this type of juxtaposition can insert meaning from two different objects. T-shirt printing designs over the past 5 years have exploited this technique to the nth degree and I'm bored with that too. Blah, blah, blah. What this means is that the Love-Hate thing with Warhol just won't go away.

Now I just finished working on a technique for Phot-Fresco, as I call it, and there was an art heist in Los Angeles of 11 Warhol Paintings. These prints were sent out on a Crime Alert from the LAPD and I was impressed with the group of prints as subject matter for my Phot-Frescos. I mixed, printed and dried a batch of flat rock paintings to get the transition from Warhol to Fresco. I was quite happy with the mix although it really didn't do enough to make me feel I could call it my own. Archiving Warhol's work was fun to show how my Frescos worked, but Where's the Art in making something look marbled in rock? Then while a stack of prints were drying in my walkway they fell some time during the day and broke into a pile of rubble. Feeling no loss I picked up the pieces and arranged them on a table like putting puzzles back together. Not only was I impressed with the Mosaic effect that resulted I now felt like I had added something to the work that I could appreciate.

Here is a photo gallery of the Warhol Stolen Art Paintings PhotFresco Mosaics. Now say that 5 times.

Typical problem - typical solution - SNAFU

2009-09-15T23:07:00.000-07:00

This is a typical artwork problem when you have a bunch of sponsors and you've agreed to put their logo on the shirt for your event. The people are happy to provide you with a disk or business card and on it is a half readable 1" design in 15 colors that is supposed to fit with 10 other randomly supplied pieces of artwork. Somebody has to do the dirty work and put these together, but the real problem is getting something to print in 1 or 2 colors without destroying the logos themselves.

I am tired of saying that anything can be done, because anything can be done. If you've got an image then somebody and put that on a shirt, but it may not be affordable and it may look like crap. The real issue with t-shirt printing is keeping it affordable and taking a pile of crappy artwork and turning it into something that can be printed at a reasonable price. The sample shown here is just that and with the contrast increased and the designs filled in accordingly it turned out to be a decent print. When I looked at the original which was a low resolution version of the same it was hard to see the detail because of all the blurriness within the logos themselves. Always remember when you are doing a job with sponsors that you can't kill yourself trying to make their logos print perfectly or your own design will suffer. Here is a link to a larger version of this artwork. Also I am providing a link to the original artwork so you can see where they started with this design.

Typically we charge $50 an hour to play with this type of design, but if the customer seems flexible and willing to pay for a new screen in case they aren't happy then sometimes we'll do a hack modification like this one without charging. It really depends on the design. The worst job of all is getting a disk with a huge list of files that are different sizes and the customer wants them arranged around their logo. We don't touch that type of artwork without an advance deposit, warnings and disclaimers galore. Now that were done here, Where's The Ribs?

T-shirts are where dust bunnies come from

2009-08-22T21:06:00.000-07:00

Dust, dust everywhere, but nor a shirt to print. That's what it feels like sometimes when you try and organize shirts in a warehouse. Piles and piles of shirts that have been left-over, misprinted, returned or simply unfolded laying around waiting for their turn to be discovered. Like waves in the ocean they continuously rise and fall depending on the season in colors that reflect like the sun off the surface of the water unconciously blinding me, keeping me in a daze. I swim from pile to pile moving the shirts and refolding them like a jeweler cutting diamonds, knowing that each shirt will eventually find a home. Each shirt will eventually be matched with a design and a person then shipped to some Godless place on earth to be worn in all it's defiant glory. But why is my home here amongst these balls of lint; when will I be found? Is God punishing me for being a smart-ass and mocking this universe by making use of sarcastic humor as if it is a dominant force in our existence like gravity? How long must I swim in these cotton piles sorting them through mounds that never have a bottom? How long must I pay for the Albatross I shot? My Leviathan is within these cotton strands and I exist only to make them real. There is no escape to another realm and as Godot I must wait, and fold shirts, until I understand.

Banking On Obama

2009-08-13T17:11:00.001-07:00

I should pay more attention to the Health Care proposal currently being discussed nationwide, but as far as I'm concerned I'm Banking on Obama as much as this design which is spray painted stencil design on checks. Most of the negative criticism sounds like people who are worried about their own health coverage, but my understanding is that the people who will be most affected are the ones who don't have health coverage to begin with, like myself. Of course the people who are in a
health care program care about the details like death or marginal care, but if you have nothing then anything is better than that. I'd die anyway or be financially destroyed if the slightest ailment comes my way, so why would I want to argue about if they are going to pull the plug, when I wouldn't even get a plug without some sort of coverage. Just pass something, then fix it later. If we can afford bombs, new cars and bank bailouts, then we can afford to do something about the lack of affordable health care we provide our citizens.

As summer winds down... Back to School winds up, up, up

2009-08-10T09:58:00.000-07:00

Back to school sales are redundant. I agree that shopping for kids is an important part of taking care of them, but does it really have to be a major deal? Basically, sales slow down over the summer and any excuse for markdowns is justified to increase sales, but I just get sick of the jargon, like it's gonna make me spend money. School cost enough money already and especially if you have a kid going to college. Currently we are having a sale on Gildan White t-shirts and hopefully your kids needs 10,000 of them. The bigger boost to sales comes when people are back in school and at their jobs where they can spend their days shopping on the internet instead of working and buying lots of useless and semi-useless decorated garments like t-shirts from yque.com. Check out our sale prices on Gildan White t-shirts for $1.40/ea, woo hoo.

Finished North Carolina and am doing States that are sentimental for some reason or another at this point.

One Nation Under a pull-down menu; One State at a Time

Which brings up a good point. This country, the United States of America, is t-shirts compatible in a backward way. I mean it is the only country that had ever based it's government on a Creed, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", created political cartoons to motivate or scare the shit out of people to join them in fighting with "Join or Die" and built it's nation off of cheap cotton and cotton subsidies. What more can you expect than a culture that creates great slogan t-shirts and thank God that I can do my part to keep the American Dream alive. Give me t-shirt or Give me Death!

Have you seen this Clown?

2009-08-04T11:48:00.000-07:00

Of course making negative or ambiguous images of Obama may be racist and insensitive, but it is about time. Political cartooning does not go hand in hand with restraint, but restraint is what has gone on with criticism of Obama in many corners of the zeitgeist. Sure there are the standard opponents to anything the man, as President, has done. But a street level posting of a clownish Obama with the ambiguous phrase underneath may be sacrilige (msp), note to fix later. Socialism, may be a joke reference anyway as Obamas policies are more capitalistic generally. Personally I think his War policies are misguided, but the point here is that his image has been whitewashed generally by the regular critics because of his sympathetic views to liberal doctrines and this poster marks the end of that in some way. It's not clear what the poster means either, so that is what I like about the message. Obama deserves the same amount of good-hearted mocking that every President gets, which includes pasting a Hitler moustache and in this case forcing him to inadvertantly wear Whiteface makeup under the guise of a clown. This is also funnier than the images that show Obama as Abraham Lincoln when he has done very little besides getting elected to earn that reference.

Go ahead, bite the Big Apple, don't mind the maggots

2009-08-04T11:34:00.000-07:00

I had previously done the New York design and I don't have time to update it today, so I am applying this prior work to my quota of one State t-shirt a day and just updating an older webpage with this design here:

New York State Flag T-shirt

This older method with the attached cart allows the design to have text added to the design, which is a pain, but a nice option. I still have to print the design which takes longer, but maybe I could start airbrushing or spraypainting the additional text below or on top, like graffiti, of the design.

Here is another New York parody t-shirt:

New Dork City T-shirt

and another I skull / hate New York making fun of the obvious I heart New York t-shirts:

I hate New York t-shirt

And have you seen this?

maybe that deserves a new post

Another State Bites the Dust - Pennsylvania revamped

2009-08-03T09:02:00.000-07:00

Here is the newest addition to the updated t-shirt portfolio. I had done this design prior, but at a lower resolution so this design should print better. Here is an image of the old one shown below. Once again Royal Blue seems to be the best color for the background t-shirt associated with this design. However, you can change the color of the shirt for this design by going here:

Pennsylvania State Flag T-shirt

While reviewing the news and wondering if the Cash for Clunkers program is effective, since the end result should be a lower overall market price for vehicles in the future to deflate the current pricing and less of a demand in the future as prospective car buyers jump into the fire now, while it is hot. Now I am pondering ways to make a Cash for Clunkers t-shirt program work. If I combine it with the State by State system I can have people mail in their old State t-shirt and get a new one for Free, as long as they cover the shipping and handling cost. This may be a good way to end the summer and jump start the domestically inspired State By State t-shirts that I am working on too.

Don't Mess with Texas - Texas State Flag T-shirt added to mix

2009-08-03T00:39:00.000-07:00

Today I added Texas to the list of State by State completed Flag designs. You can find it here:

Texas State Flag T-shirt

Navy seemed to be the right color for this item.

While reviewing the State Flag t-shirts I noticed a big inconsistency with some of the descriptions on my main website. In some cases it said Free Shipping and No Taxes for t-shirts shipping to Texas. The not taxes is correct, but I have since modified my website to allow the customer to pay the shipping, which then allows me to advertise the price of the shirts at their core value. The other issue that is a surprise for customers is when they find out about the screen setup cost of $30 per color for their design. To simplify matters I reviewed my pricelist and worked in the price of shipping and screen setup for custom printing.

Pricelist for Custom printing without setup cost and without shipping cost:

http://blanktshirt.com/tshirtprinting.html

Pricelist for Custom printing t-shirts and blank t shirts with the setup cost included in the printing prices and with Free Shipping for domestic orders:

http://blanktshirt.com/freeshippingnosetupcost.html

Obviously the shirts appear cheaper on the above listed chart, but there is something to be said for simplicity. I added the setup cost into the screen printing side of the chart and added the shipping into the blank t-shirt side of the chart. In this way the customer can still buy the blank t-shirts and receive free shipping. Since we only print on shirts that we provide then the shipping cost are included with any custom print job too since they are buying the t-shirts from us.

I currently don't have a shopping cart setup on the new "all-inclusive" price chart, but I am going to point it to a different server since these pricing schemes are way to confusing if they appear in the same shopping cart. I notice many of my online competitors offer free shipping, but generally their price points are higher than mine so it makes sense. I have been shipping more often with Fedex lately and need to update my shipping rate chart with the new pricing I am getting, however, with the Free Shipping offer it seems that I may have to just eliminate the price chart completely.

Lately I've been expediting more often with Federal Express and the rates are high, but not as bad as they used to be. Maybe the lower gas prices are showing up in the shipping rates. As long as the economy remains slow I suppose that gas prices will remain lower than the highs. Theoretically if all the new more fuel efficient vehicles people are buying help lower the overall amount of gas that people use then the net result should be lowere demand and thus lower prices for even a longer period of time. In this way we should continue to expect a contracting
business environment as people use less resources and by definition become more conservative in their expenses. What more could we ask for than slow economic growth to help the environment?

Good concept - bad designs ; State by State update of United States T-shirts

2009-08-01T09:46:00.000-07:00

I did a rough concept design of state flags for the United States a couple of years ago using clip art flags and creating a web interface to sell the shirts on. My idea was that as they sold I would print them. Not so. The interface was good, at MadeForUSA.com and it allowed the potential customer to change the background shirt color, which isn't that hard and I used American Apparel shirts which have a good color range and they are Made in the USA. The problem was most states have colorful designs and as I got a few orders they just sat there getting old as I pondered how to make the design printable with anywhere from 3-6 colors on the average flag. In the end the customers weren't happy and I had a backlog of unfinished work. When I finally spoke with the customer I offered the design as a modified design, less colors, and not exactly what was shown on my website as a design, which usually resulted in a cancelled order. Some of the items got printed after much adoo and a few of the States looked pretty good, although they aren't what was being shown.

The point is that t-shirt printed doesn't easily reproduce artwork exactly as you see it on the web. It's easy to find a picture on a website and/or have an image that you like that was designed for a poster or business card, but they can't magically jump on a t-shirt, even for a t-shirt printer, without a significant amount of work. Also the expected demand for a product is usually less than what was expected and the orders don't just flow to create a demand instantly on the web. There are a few exceptions to the rule and they relate to t-shirt transfers and digitally output image systems that may be direct printed to the shirt. I no longer argue about the quality of those items, but they often wash out and the cost for larger production runs are still high. That said you can get individual shirts made with those types of systems as long as you are willing to pay, I just don't do that type of thing since I am a screen printer or sorts.

The solution is now to rework the designs, as I should have in the first place, and put a little D-stress, eliminate some colors, use the background color of the shirt to match the color of the flag and reduce the overall work required for screenprinting to a 1-2 color job. By modifying and recreating the artwork by reducing the number of colors in each design that will allow me to do small production runs when the time comes. So I am working on one State per day to modify and adjust the designs so that they are printable and represented on the web as I plan to print them. The customer can still change the color of the shirt and we will still use American Apparel, but the shirt will best resemble the respective State flag if it is on the color of the flag for that state. I've shown a few images above of what I started with and what they look like now.

The relevance of this is global for potential custom printing customers. Full color artwork when applied to screen printing t-shirts is usually too complex to simply print it on a shirt. Not to mention expensive and a huge waste of energy to spend hundreds of dollars on screens to make something look exactly like the original. Most artwork can be modified and simplified to work on t-shirts, but it requires that someone familiar with t-shirt printing separate the design into printable colors and in the end it will cost less. Nobody likes to pay for artwork, even me, but unless I spent my time modifying these designs they were unworkable and therefore my business for this State by State Made in the USA t-shirt concept wasn't flying. Now it has a chance and it also has a chance at being profitable since the shirts won't cost as much to make. Most importantly the shirts look better with less colors and they don't have an overwhelming amount of ink on them.I'm not going to do a new flag design today since this post will count as my day's work on this project. To view the States I've completed go here:

Arkansas State Flag T-shirt

Nevada State Flag T-shirt

Arizona State Flag T-shirt

Washington State Flag T-shirt

Ok, I couldn't resist and I had to update this design today for California.

California State Flag T-shirt

Everything you need to know about t-shirts but were afraid to ask

2009-07-30T21:29:00.000-07:00

The basic information about t-shirts is required to make a decision about what type of t-shirts you may want to buy. First off it doesn't take that long to order sample t-shirts and simply try them on, wash them, print them, throw them on the ground and when you are done, use them as a rag. T-shirts are cheap and so the few dollars you need to spend to test a couple of different brands will be worth it in the end.

Value: Either you want cheap t-shirts, thick durable tshirts, fashionably thin and tighter fitting t-shirts, organic t-shirts, soft t-shirts or womens cut t-shirts. Most people are driven by their budget and the price range of t-shirts is from $1.50-8.50/each for basic tshirts in the above-mentioned types. Each time you add a variable to the mix, like pockets, longsleeves etc... then you add a dollar or two to the cost of the items. White shirts are cheaper and black or color shirts usually cost an additional dollar each. Here is a general listing of the most common brands from cheapest to most expensive: Jerzee, Gildan, Tultex, Fruit of the Loom, Hanes, Alstyle, Anvil, American Apparel, Bella and Alternative Apparel. I didn't mentions all of the brands out there, but these are readily available and if you can't find what you want in one brand then you can switch to another and still get something similar.

Weight: In the old days people rubbed the cotton on a shirt and measured it's worth by how thick it felt. These days it's just the opposite; people like lightweight thin cotton that shows a little nipple action. I personally am in the middle, I like medium weight t-shirts that are a bit soft. The thinner the cotton also means the more it tends to shrink. However, cotton does bounce back if you don't mind tugging your shirt after you've sent it through a was and restretching the cotton to fit again. The more liberal, meat-eaters, t shirts are cut like Hanes, Jerzee, Gildan and Fruit of the Loom brands. The thinner cotton shirts are American Apparel, Alternative Apparel and Tultex. In the middle you've got Alstyle and Anvil.

Availability: Typically the Hanes and Gildan are readily available. The Alstyle inventory fluctuates alot, especially in the summer. Anvil is up and down too. American Apparel has done a great job on keeping stock on items this year and I hope they keep it up as they seem to be replacing the Hanes Beefy T as the quintessential t-shirt. Tultex has been able to ship decent size orders and I don't do a lot with Fruit of the Loom or Jerzee. Bella is a Womens line of shirts that are also in the mix. I can get most orders to customers around the country in less than 5 days, but for orders that are mixed brands and or small orders I often have to consolidate the orders and it can take a full week to get them processed.

Quantity Wholesale pricing: The more t-shirts you buy the cheaper they get. There are some limits which are around the 500 quantity. Still, don't buy more shirts than you need to save money for any particular job. Shipping prices go down the more you buy, as well as, printing prices go down. From a business standpoint the risk factors go up when large orders are placed online so we require multiple levels of fraud protection before we ship large orders. No returns on large wholesale t-shirt orders since the shipping often is equal to more than the profit on any given wholesale tshirt order.

Export: Each country is different, but we are setting up an international section for orders of shirts made in the United States to be sold to a variety of countries outside the United States. Here is a list of the countries we currently do business with: Canada, England, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark and we hope to increase that list. Large export orders for tshirts are only sent on a prepay via wire transfer basis. There are no returns on large wholesale t-shirt orders and all taxes, duties and shipping rates are paid by the importer.

T-shirts without a Country; International Shipping prices for exporting t-shirts

2009-07-28T01:27:00.000-07:00

International Shipping prices for exporting t-shirts is simply put, expensive and cumbersome. However, the dollar is cheap and cotton is still king as a commodity. The United States is a great origin for purchasing t-shirts for export whether they were originally made in the US or not. I have started a research project to determine the shipping documents, the shipping cost and the import duties and taxes for t-shirts on a country by country basis. This is just the begining and I have determined to use Federal Express for the bulk of the international shipping of cotton t-shirts because of the control that I can maintain over the packages all the way to the importers door. The standard rules for exporting shirts from us to another country is that the order must be prepaid via wire transfer, including the shipping cost. All duties and taxes will be paid by the importer. Here is a list of the countries and a link to where I am compiling the information on each countries specific rules and fees:

Australia

England UK United Kingdom

Canada

Germany

Denmark

Japan

France

New Zealand

An endless array of unfinished projects

2009-07-25T18:39:00.000-07:00

I realize the difference between being young and old is that when I was younger I worked intensly on a project and became obsessed with the tools and skills related to a subject until I moved on to another subject. Now that I am older I have every project that I have ever worked on going on simultaneously and my concentration is limited due to the amount of time I can spend on each thing. I feel that at some point all of these different hobbies will merge into an opus thus allowing me to move on to something totally new.

Airbrushing is the new talent I am delving into and it seems really cool. I've spent my entire life rejecting this skill for more graphic, hard-lined, types of printing
like screen printing. I've been using spray paint and making stencils with laser cutting and wire mesh screens, however, I was reluctant to do too much since the spray paint stinks and gives me a headache eventhough I wear a mask. The idea of water-based inks not causing a toxic cloud while I worked attracted me slowly to the air brush equipment at the art store. Now I've got an assortment of inks for textiles and I think I'm going to accentuate various black lined screen print designs with air brushed highlights.

Screen printing is basically making a stencil, so the first thing I worked on was coating a wire mesh screen with emulsion. Needless to say it was a huge mess, but I managed to get a 4" X 5" rectangle photographic stencil of Obama. Ts encouraged me to go further and I restretched the screens and spend several days making the emulsion thicker.

Why T-shirts?

2009-07-14T19:31:00.000-07:00

"Don't ask me why, don't say goodbye, don't make me blooooooooo. T-shirts, I love only you." Ok, t-shirts don't deserve to be made into sing-song language, but I often wonder why do I work on this sort of cheap cotton genre. I'm pretentious enough to be a real artist, but I keep coming back to this "two-word" format of 1-2 color 8 X 10" artwork theme. I can't say exactly why, but I think it has to do with the fact that people buy t-shirts and therefore it becomes a commodity item. I like art, but the worst thing I can imagine is that I would make something really great and the first person that sees it buys it and then it is stuck away somewhere waiting until I am dead for the rest of the world to clue in on what it means. There are too many ifs, ands and butts when it comes to the limited production artwork world and t-shirts cross all-lines from a distribution standpoint.

When the web doesn't work

2009-06-27T09:18:00.001-07:00

You may be able to find anything on the internet, but it's no guarantee you'll find the right thing for you on the internet when you start searching. T-shirts are confusing at first since there are many different types and prices, but it's also a low-market business and requires a certain amount of knowledge of the brands and price points to make a decision about what type of shirt to buy. Personally I have run out of phone time to discuss these points with customers and it is not profitable to have low prices and keep an employee on board who can answer questions about shirts often just to help people figure out what they want. With this in mind I have decided to offer t-shirt consulting for a fee to offset the cost and to reduce the headaches that occur from spending a large amount of time discussing shirts that may/not result in a sale to offset the time spent. Basically I or an employee can answer blank t-shirt questions from 10a.m. until 12pm for $15 per 15 minutes. Simple enough, but in this way we can concentrate on our customers problems without worrying about making a sale. I'll post a phone number later. Email me at: admin@yque.com if you would like to setup a call back time and we can reach you and talk t-shirts.

How many t-shirts can you fit in that box? International shipping for t-shirts

2009-06-19T21:57:00.000-07:00

18 adult sized standard fit t-shirts can fit into a large flat rate box. The flat rate international box cost approximately $55 to ship to Australia, so you can assume that the best deal on regular t-shirts for shipping is $3 USD/ea, not counting any import taxes or duties that other countries charge on cotton made in the USA and elsewhere t-shirts. Some brands weigh less, that means they cost less to ship, but if you aren't saving three dollars a shirt then it isn't worth it to ship them from the United States. This is why cheap t-shirts are the worse for shipping internationally and we discourage this practice. If you are ordering the more expensive items then it may be worth the hassle.

Penny pinchers beware, you may like the price, but by the time it gets to you it won't be that cheap. We also don't encourage custom printing since the added potential problems with doing custom work aren't easily resolvable when they occur.

I am working on getting cheaper international shipping prices for tshirts through Fed-ex so that I can compete by exporting more blank t-shirts and take advantage of the weak dollar. At least with Fed-Ex you can track a package and they are responsible for getting the package to the door of the purchaser, but the paperwork may be worse and the cost are generally more than the unreliable post office in each separate country.

Organic Farmers Market Certified Edible

2009-06-18T22:07:00.000-07:00

I've stayed away from trying to sell shirts at Farmers Markets, but of late I've visited a few of these and have started thinking these may be a fun place to test market my bamboo / organic local-made t-shirt line. This is similar to how a golfer needs to play the circuit to stay on top of my game.

No time left for you

2009-06-17T22:32:00.000-07:00

No time left for you, I got no time...

My advisor in Screenprinting when I was pursuing my general degree at the University consistently advised me to go to my suppliers catalogues for information about what to do and how to do it. I thought he sucked and just didn't know anything, but basically he indicated that the newest information and more recent techniques are learned through the products on the market. The school didn't much in the way of facilities or supplies for screen printing to begin with and most books on the subject were out-dated. Once out of school I learned through my Guru of screenprinting about tradeshows and all of the valuable resources available through the suppliers directly.

Now as I field questions I see that my job is to organize the products and information for novices to understand enough to get their job done by posting and publishing screen printing information on my websites. I like web design for this purpose, but it's not very easy to get everything in the right place to answer everybody's questions and by the end of each day I tend to think people don't read the website anyway. My first question is usually, "have you been to the website?". Which is obvious that they have or they wouldn't have gotten my phone number. The newest trend is with smart phones many calls I get are from people with small screens, but they find the phone number and make a call to ask questions instead of using their phone. I hardly have time to solve the art problems that arise with custom printing to give good phone estimates with all of the interuptions from people who did not look at the website enough to make a few simple decisions before trying to get a quote, so at this point I am going to force all phone calls to voice-mail and spend my time trying to better organize the website with FAQ and gadgets. Here is the new format for custom t-shirt printing and my blank t-shirt website here: BlankTshirt.com . Post any suggestions as to what you think would make it easier to get the information you need by leaving a comment here or sending an email to: admin@t-shirts.org

Cranked out some samples today

2009-06-10T23:07:00.001-07:00

Photos of new samples attached randomly in this post.

Waiting to the last minute to complete jobs is not the best policy, but I have been reworking my pallets and doing much of the prep work myself to keep the ship afloat. I created a template screen with grid lines vertically and horizontally separated by an inch" in both directions creating a grid. Then I printed water based acrylic ink through the screen onto the pallets to identify if any of the platens were out of whack. Lo and behold I could find about a 1/3rd inch difference from the main / control platen.

This explained the problem that is compounded if I register a print on one pallet that is off in one direction by 1/3rd of an inch and then printed in a round-robin fashion as is standard then when I hit a pallet off by 1/3rd inch in another direction I could be off as much as 2/3rd of an inch. Not good. Now that I have identified the bad pallets I can either trim the edges to make them square or re-attach the brackets to attempt to straighten them in place. I suggest making this type of screen for repeated use just to keep an eye on things. The new screen made centering the design much easier too.

Once these arrangements were done I quickly pumped out sample t-shirts for several custom jobs, like a 1, 2, 3, 4....photos attached.

Desperate times call for desperate actions

2009-06-08T10:01:00.001-07:00

Given the state of the economy I have launched a serious mark-down strategy with basic white t-shirts. This has increased business, but at what cost? Shipping cost are restrictive because the cheaper the shirts get the more expensive the shipping cost look as a percentage compared to each tshirt. They don't get any lighter the more shirts people buy, but higher weights do get cheaper and easier to ship. With the inexpensive business model I can't offer free shipping, so I've capped the shipping cost off at $75 as a maximum.

So Much Blog, So Little Time

2009-05-21T09:41:00.000-07:00

No new post lately as I retool my approach to this biz. I would like to think that I do this for something other than money, but the fun moments only come when I am not answering stupid questions, like, "How much to print shirts?", without any reference to the type of shirts, the color of shirts, the number of colors in the design etc... The reality is that most companies hire friendly staff to answer the phone and field calls, you know, like the good ole days, when companies used to make a profit.

Nowadays the margins don't allow for secretarial staff and by allowing calls to come into my cell phone I have become my own telephonic nightmare. The web allows people to find my number whether they are selling something or trying to find a fool who will ship shirts to Nigeria, so over the years I have become hostile when using the phone as it requires a direct agressive response to avoid spending the whole day answering stupid questions. This is bad for our legitimate customers who are now forced to use voicemail and must leave us a message. Email is another story altogether, but my current approach is that if it can't be answered through my website then most likely we can't do it.

Or, I could charge more and hire one person to answer the phone and another to answer stupid questions all day, hmmmmm. I think I'll stick to low prices for now.

Fashion Criminals spotted at Y-Que in LA - Wall Of Shame Mugshots

2009-03-18T20:17:00.000-07:00

I've been focusing on the back room in the Y-Que in Los Feliz, LA and have been making it a theme room based on Celebrity Mugshots. The typical fare, you know. Then I painted a wall and put stripes on it like a line-up for taking mugshots of customers. Over the last few days I've averaged about 20 photos a day and they are pretty cool. you can see them here: http://fashioncriminal.com

Why American Apparel Rules, OK!!!!

2009-01-28T12:24:00.000-08:00

Having traveled the planet far and wide I feel I can finally push the obvious. I've tasted cotton from the stem to the rag and although it is a complex industry, simplicity rules the final product. American Apparel has expanded beyond the galaxy of simple t-shirt manufacturing, which is where Dov (the mastermind behind the brand) began, to eyeglasses, bags and in your face advertising which has a life of its own. Those things don't really matter though from where I come from, which is finding value in the basic t-shirt for embellishment and retail marketing through the internet. In fact, those novelty items by American Apparel are simply a distraction that keep consumers and others busy while the basic t-shirt digs deeper into the mainstream market. Replacing Hanes and other brands that have controlled the wholesale t-shirt screen printing market for the last two decades is no easy feat. Many companies are now crowding the market in an attempt to gain a footing, but this is a commodity business and I think American Apparel has finally gotten past the point where it can be easily duplicated.

T-shirts are like hamburgers and even though there are much larger, stronger and better-run companies than American Apparel, they just can't make a t-shirt in the same way that McDonalds can't make a hamburger. My prior post about the excessive marketing attempts that are pushing newer product lines as if they are different proves that trying to identify with a market niche' as a specialization in the t-shirt business is an exotic sport that doesn't easily translate into consumer-level appeal. There are too many variables in this business between the manufacturer and the consumer. American Apparel, through over-extending itself on the retail front, has created a consumer-level demand that other brands can't imitate with smoke and mirrors.

I can find an equivalent t-shirt and potentially at a better price, but not by enough to make it worthwhile. The real test is in the inventory and availability. As long as American Apparel can maintain the type of inventory support that has existed in the past year on the wholesale level then I don't see how the displaced competitors who have failed at this task can gain ground in the market. There is still room in the market for these other brands since distribution is the key and American Apparel has a hybrid, non-traditional, distribution system that doesn't compete in a head-to-head fashion with the other competitive brands which are Alternative Apparel, Alstyle, Canvas, Pima, Tultex, Anvil and many newcomers. Nonetheless, I am placing my first priority on providing American Apparel to our mid-market internet and retail store customers whenever possible because they are there when I need them.

By focusing on American Apparel as our main brand for printing and wholesale I can reduce the variables required for my main shopping cart and provide more payment alternatives and shipping options. This sort of reminds me of the day when the internet became a viable marketing vehicle and every company on earth started slapping a dot-com after their name. As users we had to choose between Netscape and Explorer as we watched AOL go down the drain with great hoopla. Finally Google came in an cleaned up the mess left after the crash and combined this is where things are heading again. By combining the right products and marketing vehicles at the right time we expect to expand our distribution of our printed and blank products. For 2009 I am focusing my efforts by combining American Apparel t-shirts with Google Checkout in a seamless way. Check out the new cart as it is developed at T-shirts.org/shop.

Not so long ago on a planet far, far away...

2009-01-25T15:24:00.000-08:00

Once there was a time when fashionable, politically correct t-shirts were a rare commodity. Such was the history of planet Earth in the Milky Way Galaxy during the 3rd Millenium and although cotton is an inherently natural product and eventhough putting images on things is a craft that dates back to before there were dates, the idea of a concientious garment and printing process was an impossible beast to find. The times have now changes and now that Obama is President it is very easy to find "politically correct", evironmentally sensitive concientious garments, inks and cleaning chemicals. There is so much available now that the very idea is about to collapse under the nomenclature required to identify the problems that are being solved by the products that are now available. This leads me back to square one and trying to identify the correct words so that I can categorize the products that should be used to manufacture the clothing for masses that will be as organic as the people themselves are.

Corporate Responsibility, Certified Organic, Climate Neutral, Recycled fabric, Organic Cotton, Sustainable Products, ReUsable, Eco-Friendly, Green, Earth Friendly, Eco Conscious, Eco-Vertigrain, PVC Free, Phalate Free, Green Company, Solar Powered, Mixed Sources, Natural Fibers, 100% Organic, Organic Pigments, Social Accountability, Organic Exchange, Organic Trade, Fair Trade, Organic Exchange, Sustained Environmental, Organic Fiber, Avoid Contamination, Conduct Standards, Environmentally Unfriendly, 3rd Party Certification, Beneficial Insects, Physical Weed Removal, Corporate Signatory SAI, SA8000 standard, ILO Conventions, United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, WRAP certified, CERES Principles, Code of Corporate Conduct, Reduced Impact, Healthy Soil, Grey Goods, Green Goods, and on and on....

WTF!!!! I had thought that I over-thought things, but I am going to have to carry around an organic dictionary to even begin to understand what is going on in this industry. All of these phrases are in contrast and opposition to the obviously death-ridden, socially inept, destructive evil, racist, meat-eating, machine-made, imported, improperly washed, stolen, soil killing, unstandardized, un-categorized, non-convention, unapproved, cotton-killers, not recognized by the United Nations, Kyoto rejected, Basic, unfashionable, Terrorist funded, politically-incorrect, dirty, unsexy, improperly sized, wasteful, high-impact, irresponsible, Stupid T-shirts that existed before this revolution.

The problem now is choosing, for a price, the right garment and ink for the job. I tend to think that things are made similar to the way they have always been made, but for the sake of marketing companies have put a larger emphasis on writing press releases and using green ink in the printing of their catalogs. Sadly all of this Smoke and Mirrors may be irrelevant to the survival of their companies if price becomes a larger issue to the consumer since there is this thing called a Recession. I didn't see a focus on Recession-Friendly, which is going to determine which of the above-mentioned style/products survive. Once I determine the correct garments to look at we'll review the big picture issue, price and see who is left standing.

Forced to leave the polling place because of Obama T-shirt

2008-11-04T12:43:00.000-08:00

Yes, I was asked to leave the polling area because of my t-shirt. It had a portrait of Obama, but no words!!! That ain't right, but I didn't want to go to jail before I had a cup of free coffee from Starbucks. I reluctantly agreed to leave instead of having to turn my shirt inside-out. What if the only clothes I had were Obama clothes, provided by the government, with prints inside and outside? Would I have to Vote Naked??? Plus, why is a photo, without text, considered propaganda. I took an "I Voted" sticker and drove to Starbucks and got a cup of Joe. After that I went back to the polls and wore a Dickies jacket over my Obama shirt in order to be able to cast my vote.

Sun Stained Shirts - For Employees only

2008-08-23T16:33:00.000-07:00

I was fighting with an employee over a sun stained shirt that had been in the window of the store as a display. Over time the sun drains the color from the fabric and depending on how it hangs there are bleached out areas on the shirt. In this case it was a folded shirt, so the stained area was in a rectangle on the front of the shirt. Needless to say, we decided this effect was desirable and thus the search for the perfect sun bleaching inks began. I checked out Dharma Trading and found a sun painting technique, then quickly drove to the place and picked up several of the inks in white, black and red. I also decided bleach and other chemicals should be considered to create this non-ink effect. Discharge inks aren't being considered here because of their overwhelming potential toxicity and the requirement that the shirts would need to be washed before they can be sold. Here is a photo of 3 prints with different chemical/ink mixtures that I am hanging in the sun to see how they work out.

Old t-shirts never die, they just get used as rags

2008-06-21T12:09:00.000-07:00

I had a flood in my shop last week. For some reason I had woke up at 2am and actually headed to work at 3am. I never do this, but I was drawn to the disaster that was going on. I opened the door and water was 1" deep in the shop and spraying from a nozzel that had broke in the night. I grabbed what I could find, t-shirts, and threw them on the floor. By 5a.m I had done enough to where I could leave and go back to bed hoping somehow that maybe the entire fiasco was a bad dream. It wasn't, but even though the damage was limited I am most impressed that I somehow got up in the middle of the night and found this mess before it got any worse.

I am working on installing a wholesale t-shirt wiki at WikiTshirt.com I plan to use the site as a more definitive place to develop descriptions of all of the different aspects of screen printing and t-shirts. This blog works good, but the organization is linear by date and I need a place to organize the information I need for my customers by subject. Just text editing on a blog is tough, but limited information edited over time should provide useful tips that will be helpful for hundreds of years. Once it is up and running I'll start pasting some of the information about shirts from here on the wiki.

I also need to block the spammers from this wiki. This is the only reason the t-shirt wiki has been postponed. Everytime I start a bulletin board / forum it gets overrun by spammers. the same thing happened as soon as I started a wiki on toptennewstories.com Then I went to upgrade to a more recent wiki from wikimedia.org and I needed php 5.0 to run the database. This required me to try a new server for the database to work on, so I am trying a new company that hopefully has the php5.0 built in to thier database servers. La, La, La. I can only say that if you think screen printing is tricky, you should try networking and running a database. It makes screenprinting fun.

I don't remember if I mentioned this the other day, but I am working on a list of categorized characteristics for the various brands and styles of shirts that are commonly available for wholesale t-shirt printing jobs, hoodies too. There is a wide range of styles for t-shirts, some of which are organic t-shirts, some are ringspun, not printable, cheap, expensive and so on... Well I am going to try an summarize these items for a sort of cheat sheet for people to quickly figure out which type / brand of tshirt they are looking for. A briefing of this list can be found here: Wholesale T-shirts Brand List - work in progress.

My old post was about saving the world, but I digressed

2008-06-17T01:03:00.000-07:00

yes, i was going to save the world. My co-worker, Aaron, sent me a PDF of photos with sympathetic sayings about the use of plastic bags and the effects on the environmen. After viewing it I realized that there is no reason to be using said bags in our store since number one, we can print on inexpensive canvas bags and practically give them away for free while advertising simultaneously, duh. Who needs a number two, duh. Ok, I have a number two, its, uh, number two...oh, yeah, paper bags, yes, paper is fine since wood is divine. I rymed, oh yeah. All things break down, but paper breaks down quicker, which makes bags superior. Earlier today I had to cut my entire shower curtain section after hearing that the release of phalaytes from opening a shower curtain is dangerous, hazard to your health. I will admit, those things stink after you open them. Now I'm on a search for an organic shower curtain that won't kill me while bathing. Rayon, Bamboo, Hemp? You would need a very strong rod to be able to sustain a cotton shower curtain. It would need to be water-resistant, flexible and light, like a force-field against water.

Comparing T-shirts for what they are, Cotton fiber knitted together

2008-06-17T00:42:00.000-07:00

That's all there is my friend, cotton fiber. Let's throw out the dye and rip them all, if that's all, there is. When I was a young boy I used to fish at the pond by the mill and one day when daddy caught an bright orange fish and said, it's the from "The Mill". I thought to myself is that all there is to mutation? Then one day I was standing around a boat listening to racist talk about things that happened over 100 years ago from three-fingered people when I asked, "what happend to your hand?". The old man called Whitey (because of the lint in his head) said, "The Mill". I though to myself is that all there is to a hand? Then one day I was at a party for 4th of July that was put on by "The Mill" and since I went to the Mill school and lived in "The Mill" house on "The Mill" street I was able to attend. They had some of the best free hot dogs and the people that worked at "The Mill" got two weeks vacation. It was a lot of fun, but I couldn't help but wonder if they should've have to lose their hands, catch glowing fish and eat hot dogs for fun. Now I've worked for 20+ years in the cotton pushing business and although I still have all my fingers I can't help but think when people ask me stupid questions about t-shirts and printing on fabric that they shouldn't think it to be that important. It's not all it's cracked up to be to be in the fashion business, because it is still business. That's all it is.

Old t-shirts never dye, they just become rags

2008-06-16T23:16:00.000-07:00

Pardon the pun, but I can't help but try and bee punny when writing on this blog. Who could possibly care this much about t-shirts to follow or not take humor in every nook and cranny of life when it comes to t-shirts. The only reason I've been successful at this is I don't care about being serious, otherwise I would've gotten a real job at the local money making factory. My point here is that I have been spending my afternoons drying old t-shirts that I used to soak up water from a flood I had in my new warehouse. Nothing like the floods that people are suffering through in Iowa and along the Mississippi River, but my own little version of a hose breaking and watering the cement. Luckily I woke up at 2a.m. that day and decided to go to work early, otherwise I could've increase the water-level of my the San Francisco Bay by a couple of inches had I shown up on my normal schedule around noon.

These shirts are still not worthy of being thrown away where they could decompose quietly. No, I'm planning on drying them out and printing on them again, for test prints and for cleaning out old ink. I just can't let them go. They aren't worth much, but what the hey it would cost more to buy rags than t-shirts, so why not. Plus I like the idea of drying clothes in the wind. I hang them all over my truck and then when I have to go somewhere I remember that they are hanging and I pull them all down quickly and toss them in the back, still damp.

Did you know that original photo-chemicals are commonly recognized as being when people dried their clothes in the sun and the light made the colors brighter. Without this type of human-brilliance we never would've had photography. The effect of the sun and air on garments makes them stiffer, but somehow they feel cleaner too. It's as if they fibers got to breath and they are empty of soil that comes from wearing clothes. These shirts aren't exactly clean either, since they have soil caked on them from the ground and from laying in the back of my truck, however, after they have hung for a few hours they seem cleaner, not quite wearable, but cleaner.

This is how I think the American people feel. There is nothing funny about it, but it is coincidental that the last time we elected a new Democratic President there was flooding in the summer in the Iowa region. This indicates that the nation may be going through a cleansing of sorts, baptismal-like, rinsing away the misdirected passions of the past so that we may move forward in the fall with a new approach, a new government. I couldn't help but mention this as something that only being old enough to notice would allow someone to consider the similarity of the times. Sure, there are also paralells between the end of the Nixon era and the begining of the Carter term, but I wasn't paying attention to politics and weather then. This is symbolic and as indicative of events as the Presidential polling.

Water-based short runs

2008-06-14T18:30:00.000-07:00

I've been using water-based for my t-shirt samples since I don't have to heat up a dryer and for one-color jobs the inks are similar to plastisol inks. For bigger t-shirt printing runs white t-shirts I've been thinning down the black to make it similar to the water-based and have come to find that I like it a bit more than water-based because it doesn't bleed through to the inside of the shirt. Back and forth, that's how this challenge seems to be going. Water-based inks are good for this bad for that and the same goes for plastisol inks. There has been a lot of discussion lately about phalaytes. I wonder how that effects t-shirt inks. Basically if you are concerned about your carbon footprint then I suggest only white or natural shirts since they must have less coloring in them and require less ink to print.

Back to Mr. Nice Guy - How may I help you?

2008-05-21T23:08:00.001-07:00

Ok, I realized that speaking truthfully is risky from a business perspective. Just like I rant on about how my customers often don't provide me with decent artwork I must be sure to see that they can just as easily tell the world how shitty I am to work with. I'm not sure that I would work with me if I read this blog. T-shirt printing isn't such a skill that people should learn it before they learn to make a living or even before they learn to drink beer. It's a craft that every now and again someone is forced to do for the group or event that they are involved in. It's good-natured fun, not rocket science and I shouldn't expect the customers to know any more about doing artwork than you could expect them to know about how a mechanic fixes their car. They drive in to an auto shop and say "fix it".

Who am I to think that people should be able to provide artwork or communicate specifically about a t-shirt print job? It would be nice, but it's not gonna happen. This job is basically about hand-holding and customer service. The customer doesn't want to know any more than they have to and I don't blame them. I don't like it, but I don't have to do it if I don't want to, so if I am going to do it I need to be Mr. Nice Shirt instead of saying "NO" everytime I get a stupid quote. I should explain why I can't do things instead of just saying go to my competitors. I should lower my price when everyone ask for a discount below my already low prices. Or better yet, I should raise all my prices so that I can lower them for everybody. I should promise to do artwork for people and not charge them for it since they don't want to pay for artwork. I could just raise my prices on the printing for everybody and then I could give artwork away to those that need it.

I could, but I won't. I don't have time to do the good jobs and the jobs for the customers that do have artwork if I did that. If I spent time explaining why I'm saying "No" then I won't have time to say "Yes" to the guy who has a real job. Being Mr. Nice guy is kinda like taking spam seriously and it just doesn't make sense from a business standpoint. I'm going to try to be nicer and try not rag on the fact that I have to answer redundant questions for a living, but I hope that people realize when I say "No" it is simply a way to save time for both of us in the long run.

The Angry Professor - Teach your kids art...

2008-05-21T08:53:00.001-07:00

I often hate my attitude when I get bad art and stupid questions, but I try my hardest to be understanding and sympathetic to the fact that many people don't review the pricelist and or can't provide graphics in an easily screen printable format. I would have also liked to be something more professional in my career than a hack printer putting crappy artwork on t-shirts for a living, but this is how I pay my bills and it's too late to turn this ship around at this point. In college I remember a few professors who were upset at answering stupid questions, yet they were stuck teaching remedial math, while the other, higher tenured professors were doing research and dating the grad student helpers that worked with them on special "astral physics" projects. In fact I think they added that department just so more women would come into the Science building, but I digress.
Being a professor is as close to comparing my job to a respectful career as I can come up with, frankly it is more like being a janitor, but I do have to interact with customers and janitors get to work alone and have an office/closet. So when I get mad it is only because I feel like I am wasting my time and no one has any respect for the artwork that is required to patch, copy and paste together the crap they give me into some kind of printable design. The reason they have no respect is that nobody wants to pay for artwork, yet they can't do it themselves. These people are very much like the entitled type of students who marched into college without having studied in High School, but were determined to be doctors, lawyers and leaders of the free world (myself included). Heck if it wasn't for college I would've never learned what I was supposed to have learned in High School. These types of professors didn't like their job and I don't blame them, but you didn't want to feel their wrath.

I've become this giant fish in a small pond. I pull my hair and roll my eyes each time a new email is slid under my door asking for a better grade. I regret fixing problems for people who should've gotten the answer correct, but for their simplistic adding mistakes. I stomp when a customer wants a job by the end of the week, but they haven't completed the artwork required or made any of the decisions that are necessary to even place the order. Why, why, why am I forced into this demeaning servitude even though there is no such thing as tenure in the t-shirt screen printing world? There is no "3 months off" in the summer. There is no retirement fund or union to protect my interest. There is only a never-ending flow of competitors and cheaper companies out there stealing my good jobs. And a bunch of crappy companies that make printing seem easy who I gladly send my ungrateful bad artwork customers to whenever I can to get rid of them like, cafepress.com and customink.com. If they think I'm bad or expensive then they can go there and either pay through the nose or get crappy t-shirt with their crappy artwork.

Just teach your kids art PARENTS. Because people surely can't learn this stuff as adults. You get stupider as you get older and apparently if you don't learn how to be artistic as a kid then you just keep creating crap as adults, but as an adult people have confidence, arrggghhhhh. This confidence keeps bringing them back with more bad artwork as if they've "figured it out" by opening the file and changing the resolution, but they haven't changed the quality of the original crap they did to begin with. This is why I hate my job, but this is why I get paid. If they could do the artwork, then they could print the shirts and they wouldn't need me. Just like if you're so smart, then why the hell did you go to college to begin with???? I've got to go now. I have some quotes and shitty artwork to finish. I've got to take a screen shot of a Power Point file and then increase it to 12" wide from a 3" image and hope that somehow it is printable.

Life is a bowl of cherries, listed, organized and sorted in columns and rows.

2008-05-19T14:19:00.000-07:00

Learning new things is supposed to be fun, unless you constantly hit roadblocks. Don't get me wrong, I like a challenge, which is why I keep hitting roadblocks. I just can't give up this one project of working on a database on the OSCommerce platform for managing my t-shirt collections. Time after time I think I have it right and then when I check my data or move on to another step I get garbage, jumbled data and formatting messes. I want to move on, but since the OS Commerce platform interfaces with Google Checkout I am drawn to organizing my products there for the long run. Google itself has a lousy interface for shipping and options, but a great search engine. T-shirts are riddled with options and different characteristics that require a rather complex management system to keep them up.

Even changing the look and feel of OS Commerce seems easy, but it's the backside of the operations that need to be created before any of that stuff is relevant. Here is what I'm working on now: http://t-shirts.org/shop

The concept of a no-cost shopping cart is great because then I can upload as many products as I want and not have to worry about charges for this and that, as well as, I would be able to use the cart as a job management tool. None of the current carts on the market deal with everything that a t-shirt business needs, especially the accounting and custom printing stuff, but it seems that a universal cart like the Open Source OS Commerce cart would do the job. I plan to finish this so I can get back to selling, so if you have any suggestions on the best shopping cart for t-shirt businesses on earth please let me know.

Meanwhile, I've gotten my solar panels installed and am currently running office equipment on the battery system I've got up that is converting the DC to AC. I don't think I will have enough amperage to run a full-blow dryer to set plastisol inks, but for the basic water-based t-shirt inks I can now print and run most of my operation off-the-grid. I need to test an exposure unit for making screens to see if I have enough juice for that. I am currently running two high-efficiency light units that should be able to do the job, but it would be quicker with UV bulbs and that would shorten the exposure times.

Discharge Inks Water Based Inks and Discharge Plastisol T-shirt Printing Inks

2008-05-11T14:48:00.000-07:00

Forget everthing I said on this blog about discharge and water-based inks for t-shirt printing. I drove to LA and purchased a water based discharge ink and a hybird water based / plastisol discharge ink. This particular ink claims that the use of these inks is not harmful (whatever that means), they do not stink and they can be sold on the finished product without having to be labeled or washed before they are sold. So if I close my eyes, ears, shut my mouth and just print with these inks I can assume that what is written on the fact sheet is true and just enjoy the effects, which is what I did today.

The water-based t-shirt discharge ink had a nice thick consistency and it was easy to handle. It printed through a wide mesh and although it bled a little, it was very bright and knocked the shirt color and provided a nice bone finish. I did several test like this, including printing from the inside of the shirt to allow a half print type effect to show through the shirt on the other side. The finished product didn't stink and although you couldn't see the residue on the fibers of the shirt it was a little stiff. I am sure it will soften a bit when it is dried and from what it says on the fact sheet I can send this shirt to market as it is. Later I'll mix some color water-based inks, which seem to be softer, into the discharge ink and see if it pops. I was haunted by dirty fingers and little spots showed up afterwards on the shirts I was printing. Solve one problem and find a new problem. Theres no way to clean out derelict discharge spots on shirts, I would just need to print or spray something around it to make it a part of the design.

The plastisol /water based discharge ink was thin and I added some color inks to the ink to see if thickening would make it printable or easier to handle. I could've used a tighter mesh, but I wasn't ready for that. I did a split fountain and used the Haight Inc design that was still in the press. To make things interesting I mixed red and yellow and did a split fountain horizontally through the peace sign on fire design. The mixed ink was thick and although the colors brightened up when I flashed the design they were still thickish and it didn't make sense to use plastisol. I left the ink in the screen to see if it set-up since longer working time is the main advantage of plastisol over water-based inks. I can see using a plastisol discharge for one-color prints and longer working times than water based and less bleed. Also for creating a base for lighter, multi-color, plastisol prints that require more detail than water-based inks provide. I could increase the softhand in plastisol and make a rather smooth plastisol print and not have the screen drying issues to deal with that water-based inks create.

I am making some new screens using a different emulsion, water-resistant no phalaytes (whatever those are), with a hardener to use with the discharge inks. Regular photographic emulsion breaks down quickly.

I also have been able to print and test some water based inks that have a super high opacity and I am pleased to announce that they did not require a discharge ink to make them printable on darks. This long awaited surprise that somewhat anti-climatic in that I ran to the store to show off the samples and several people could not tell the difference between the water based inks and the plastisol. Because the opacity is created by the thickness of the ink this made the prints a little thick. So what, it is water-based inks on dark t-shirts, Woo Hoo! I did a wash test after only 1-2 days of dry time and they didn't break down or dull out. The ink is very expensive, almost 4 times the price of plastisol but there is not odor and this means I could do single prints almost anywhere and not require a dryer or any special chemicals to clean the screen.

As such, I am going to put individual one-color screen printing presses in the store for retail customers to print their own shirts and we won't be limited to only white garments. Finally a few break throughs that have a practical application, as long as I don't over analyze the inks and I just go along with what they claim. The other fact is that I am going to have to reshoot many of my screens to create water-based printable screens for use with these new inks. My silk screen supplier should be happy about that.