Impressions - April/May 2013 - (Page 38)

HOW TO By Greg Kitson, Contributing Writer Here are some tips on how to get the most dollars out of equipment and supplies you already paid for. I would venture to guess that most shops in this industry have something in their facility or storage unit that is paid for but is not earning money. Sometimes this happens because of a higher-thanperceived learning curve, which left the buyer frustrated and unwilling to invest more time and resources to get this asset working. Unfortunately, this is a common scenario with digital direct-to-garment printers, but it also happens with other equipment. A screen printer may buy an embroidery machine or any type of decorator may buy a vinyl cutter or sublimation printer thinking he will use it. Industry newcomers also often ﬁnd artwork to be a major stumbling block when buying equipment. This is a common problem with entrepreneurs who come to trade shows thinking they want to do apparel decorating. They watch a digital printer produce beautiful samples during a show, but when they set up a machine in their shop, they wonder why the 72 dpi image from the Internet looks terrible. It’s because nobody told them that good artwork is necessary for a good print. This entails hiring a graphic artist or purchasing graphics software and learning how to use it, which is way more than they bargained for. Even an experienced embroiderer may struggle with digital printing work because of the artwork requirement differences between the two disciplines. With embroidery, the business model used today is to get a scan of a business card or lowresolution vector art and send it to a digitizer, who sends back a ready-to-sew ﬁle. If a digital printer or other equipment is purchased with the expectation that it works the same way, decorators soon learn that this is not the case. A third reason a capital investment may end up languishing in a corner is that the buyer doesn’t know how to sell this new capacity, or he purchased it without ﬁguring out how it ﬁts in with what his shop already offers. 38 Impressions | April/May 2013 Do you have an old, unused piece of equipment shoved off into a corner of your shop? Take my advice and either sell it or have it hauled off to the junk yard and recoup that valuable ﬂoor space. All photos courtesy of Mind’s Eye Graphics, Decatur, Ind. impressions impressionsmag.com http://www.impressionsmag.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Impressions - April/May 2013

Impressions - April/May 2013
Contents
First Impressions
From the Show Director
FYI
Product Gallery
ISS Conferences
Game On!
There’s a Cap for That
Should You Start a Preprint Line? Part 2
How to Maximize Your Resources
Setting Up a Mobile Garment Decoration Business
Shop Spotlight
Embroidery Design & Digitizing
Embroidery Production
Screen Printing Graphics & Design
Screen Printing Production
Online Directory
Digital Decorating
Classifieds
Ad Index

Impressions - April/May 2013