Impressions - September 2009 - (Page 42)

HANDS ON >> SCREEN PRINTING >> HANDS ON TECH TIPS HANDS ON HANDS ON Graphics & Design By Dan and PRINTING SCREEN Kevin Corcoran Contributing HANDS ON Writers >> Foil Adds Sparkle and Margin While getting started printing with foil will be a trial-and-error process, here are some tips to reduce the learning curve. When we get an order at our shop, it’s not uncommon to hear an employee exclaim, “Foiled again!” That’s because as many as 15% of our orders involve some kind of foil printing, making the process somewhat of a specialty for our shop — Forward Printing, Oakland, Calif. We’ve been doing foil work for about four years now, having added it mostly in response to requests from customers. Working with foil also is a result of the fact that R&D is in our shop’s DNA — it’s just part of who we are and what we do. R&D breaks up the monotony of constant production, but more importantly, it helps our relatively small shop ﬁnd new ways to be competitive. washed inside out on the gentle cycle, in cold water and then hang dried. Even with this gentle care, foil will eventually ﬂake off — and that’s something the customer needs to know up front. Foil is just a lessthan-permanent decorating technique, plain and simple. That said, we believe the best use of foil is as an accent only. Probably half of our orders involve foil as a prominent design element — and that’s not our preference. When it’s used as an accent, if (and when) the foil washes away, the design as a whole isn’t compromised — only the accent is lost. Another smart use of foil is as a design element in distressed artwork. When the foil starts to TECH TIPS HANDS ON weight in the top colors only. Do not add a release agent to underbase inks or the foil adhesive. Of course, these are the types of “gory details” that customers don’t need to (or care to) hear about — but they are vital if you are going to deliver a printed garment with foil that looks great. FOIL FANS Foil has brought us lots of customers who couldn’t get the technique done elsewhere, or at least couldn’t get it at the smaller volumes that we’re willing to handle. We’ll do foil work on orders as small as 36 pieces. Niche-market customers who request foil include boutique fashion designers and urban/hip-hop designers. Both are extremely retail-oriented markets that can charge a premium for their wares — and foil ﬁts in great with their designs and adds to the large margins they can command. We generally don’t get requests for foil on, say, band merchandise. That’s not too surprising since most bands aren’t likely to sell shirts for $50 to $60 a pop. Likewise, the custom wholesale market isn’t especially keen on foil, largely because it just can’t justify the additional expense. Adding foil to a 36-piece order might add as much as $3.50 per shirt. On higher quantities, the per-shirt charge falls to somewhere between $1 and $2.50. Usually, we’re only putting a single foil color on a garment, not multiple foil colors. Suppliers offer equipment for doing multicolor foil prints, but that’s a new, fairly expensive technology that we’ve shied away from; our adventurousness has its limits. An alternative is to purchase rainbow foil or to lay down two foils on a design, but that’s not repeatable or mass producible. Forward Printing, Oakland, Calif., has made something of a specialty out of printing with foil accents. Generally, we don’t hard sell customers on the notion that they should add foil to their designs. More often than not, it’s the customer who comes to us with the idea already in his head that he wants foil. That’s a good thing for us, because it means that the customer already understands the nature of foil: It’s much more fragile than typical screen printing. We wouldn’t want to talk a customer into the process and have him be disappointed by the somewhat less-durable nature of foil. Customers who know foil understand that the garments should be 42 Impressions >> September 2009 pull away after wear and washing, it only adds to the garment’s distressed vibe. We often use foil in combination with water-based inks since about 85% of all of our work is done with water-based inks. Foil, by the way, does not stick to water-based inks, which is great for a shop like ours that does a lot of water-based ink printing. Occasionally, a customer will request foil with plastisol ink — and that requires some extra care, since foil will stick to plastisol. When using foil in a print with plastisol, we use an ink additive called Foil Release at up to about 10% by GETTING FAMILIAR WITH FOIL Offering foil has been a great way for our shop to stand out from others. It’s also a plus for us because we’re based in the Bay area in Northern California, where most customers are hip to urban styles that incorporate foil. Frankly, we’ve found that foil simply isn’t that difﬁcult to do. Some of our local impressionsmag.com http://www.forwardprinting.com http://www.impressionsmag.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Impressions - September 2009

Impressions - September 2009
Contents
First Impressions
FYI
Product Gallery
Decorators Open Up on DTG Workflow, Profits
Jacket Sales Stay Warm
Online Directory
Diversifying Your Customer Base
Graphics & Design
For Screen Printers Only
Business to Business
Classifieds
Ad Index
On Design

Impressions - September 2009