Get With The Program

Over the past few weeks we’ve picked up some new programs and art compilations to increase the range and quality of our designs.  Graphic design can unfortunately be limited by the tools on hand so each additional plug in, application, program, extension, tutorial, or clipart pack can make a big impact on the final artwork you’re outputting.

 

Here is a list of the most recent things we’ve picked up:

 

CorelDraw.

When we were first getting into the t-shirt game, we designed exclusively on raster-based programs like Photoshop and Paint.Net.  In all honestly, it can be done that way.  However, vector programs like Adobe Illustrator and CorelDraw provide a lot of awesome functionality that you just can’t get with Photoshop or Photo Paint.  Upgrading to vector art is challenging, because the whole language is completely different than PS.  Once you get the hang of it, though, it’s amazing how much more you can do with your designs.

 

Fashion Factory – CorelDraw Plug-in.

Fashion Factory is awesome.  I have to thank our colleague, Jeanette from The Pondering Pooch, for recommending it and my partner Steve for making the decision to get it.  It’s a plug-in that quickly adds textures and effects to artwork.  Like, really quickly.  In just a few easy clicks you can add a distressed, grunge look to any design.  There is also an extensive list of vector-based, scalable, color-changeable t-shirts that allow you to make really slick mock-ups for customers.  Definitely a helpful plug-in, and worth every penny.

 

800 CorelDraw Brushes.

Working with vector programs allows you to use and create custom brushes.  This can be anything from the simple – drawing a line and applying a brush that converts the line into a realistic paint brush stroke – to something far more elaborate – drawing a line and applying a brush that converts the line into a highly detailed, realistic chain.  Or carved stone.  Or lightning, tribal designs, feathers, patterns…anything!  With brushes, if you can draw a line, you can create some visually stunning graphics.

 

T-Shirt Clipart.

This one is very simple.  Have a design in mind that requires a skull?  Oh.  *click click*  Here’s 37 of them.  What’s that?  You need a tribal effect for the background?  Boom – how about one of these 41 tribals?  There’s a lot of amazing, high quality, hand-drawn art in this pack.

 

Now this is a little embarrassing, but I feel like showing this will really drive home the importance of these tools.  I’m going to post two pictures here.  The first is a design that I created four years ago using Paint.NET, when we first started.  The second is a design I worked up yesterday using the tools listed above.  There is, shall we say, a noticeable difference.

 

 

 

Best. Emulsion. Ever.

To coincide with the development of our new logo and the addition of our brand-spankin’-new conveyor dryer, we wanted to pick up some new products with which to experiment.  As I’ve mentioned before, we believe it is important for screen printers to challenge themselves – to learn new techniques and styles.

In the spirit of self-challenging, we ordered some discharge ink earlier this month.  Although we had the opportunity to print with discharge at Ryonet’s Los Angeles location, we have yet to utilize it in our own shop.  The addition of Gilligan (our new Little Buddy conveyor dryer) seemed like a great time to step up to a new and exciting challenge.  We are currently making preparations for our first run of discharge prints next week.

We also picked up some Ryonet WBP Hybrid Emulsion for Water Based & Plastisol.  When we first started printing we used CCI DXP (Pink) Diazo-Photopolymer Dual Cure Direct Emulsion, which works very well.  However, its primary function is for plastisol ink and breaks down too quickly when used with water-based inks.  When we began using the water-based ink we switched to SWR-3 water-resistant emulsion.  This also worked well, but is no longer available through Ryonet.  Good thing, too.  Otherwise we probably wouldn’t have tried the WBP Hybrid emulsion which, as the title of this post suggests, is the best emulsion ever.  At least of the three we’ve used.

WBP has a vibrant red color that is helpful during the washout, printing, and cleanup stages.  It coats the screen beautifully, dries quickly, and washes out like a dream.  The website claims that WBP is easier to use AND reclaim than SWR-3.  That’s an understatement!  This stuff is amazing, and I highly recommend that every printer at least tries a quart.  Also, the cost ($27.99 for a quart) is the same as the cost of standard DXP emulsion.  Can’t beat that.

Here are a few quick shots of an exposed screen, coated with WBP.

MOYA’s New Logo

Here it is.  The new official MOYA logo.  Shirts coming soon…

Cool, right?

Building Stock

As the end of the month draws near, I am becoming more and more panicky about meeting the self-imposed deadline for launching the MOYA website.  For the most part, everything is falling into place – slowly but surely.

What I’ve been working on the last few days is building up stock so we actually have something to sell on the website.  The plan is to launch with limited (but some) stock, offering only four or five of our 310 designs, and gradually increasing the available designs monthly or even weekly.

The benefits of this plan are numerous.  It’s significantly less expensive than just ordering thousands of shirts at once.  It allows us time to gather useful information such as what designs, sizes, and colors are most popular.  Also, it gives me time to breathe and prepare for the next task.  The thing about tackling all aspects of your business yourself is that you have to tackle all aspects of your business yourself.

At any rate, I’ve been in The Lab for the past three days trying to bust out some small runs for a few of our designs.  All in all, it’s been going very well.

I ran into a problem today, though.  Yesterday, I printed a 10-shirt run of a design with all water-based white ink.  They all came out beautifully.  Today, I tried to duplicate the run with a different colored shirt – same screen, same ink; cleaned up and good as new – but I ended up ruining 6 out of 10 shirts.  For some reason the ink in the screen would just not release the shirt, causing the shirt to lift from the platen and ruining the print.  I tried adjusting the off-contact on the press, cleaning the platen and applying new adhesive, washing out the screen and starting from scratch…basically everything I could think of, I tried.  This just seems to be the latest battle in the epic war I’m having with white and yellow ink.

Anyway, here’s a couple pictures of the successful prints.  Keep an eye out for moyatees.com, coming soon (fingers crossed).

Updates to The Lab

Today I spent the entire day in The Lab – cleaning up, moving some things around, redecorating, and just generally resetting the space.

It’s important to make your workspace as comfortable, efficient, and fun as possible.  If it’s somewhere that’s appealing to be, it will be a more productive environment.

I added a wire cube organizer, for one.  This will soon be used for shirt stock, but for now it’s holding squeegees, emulsion, Enviro-Strip, and some other supplies.

The screen rack I built is working like a dream, but it doesn’t hold anywhere near all of my screens.  I’d like to add a pro rack at some point – the solid construction and wheels make it a great addition.  It’s on my Want List.

Finally, I ordered a few posters.  The theme is “Tarantino” – which is appropriate since “MOYA” comes from Pulp Fiction.  Also, this seemed like a good addition since so much of our inspiration is rooted in film.

Here are a few pictures of the updates.

Ethan

Team MOYA

A Few Basic Screen Printing Questions [video]

New Screen Printing Forum

If you’re a screen printer, you know how helpful it is to have someone to answer your questions. As a matter of fact, this is important for everyone. Nobody knows everything there is to know, so having a community of educated minds that can provide answers, tips, and tricks if you’re struggling is a great blessing.

Ryonet has created a new screen printing forum for this very purpose.

Now the helpful and knowledgeable Ryonet staff and their extensive, experienced customer base can meet together on the Ryonet blog to exchange ideas and problem-solving techniques. This is the ideal forum because it brings together Those With Problems and Those With Answers. I have joined a few screen printing forums in the last few years, and I’ve found that most of them only have Those With Problems – there are very few accessible answers and definitely not a variety of answers or solutions.

The forum is brand-spankin’-new, so go sign up immediately! I joined and posted my first question – “BlackMAX Ink – How Many Prints?” I was curious about how many films I could expect to print before I needed to buy new ink for the printer. I checked back in a little bit and already had four responses, one of them from The Ryonet Solutions Team and one from Ryan Moor himself! How about that?

I have to say that screen printers, as a group, are some of the coolest people I’ve ever had the chance to meet. That’s why I’m so stoked about this forum, and plan on contributing where I can, and receiving the benefits when I’m lost. You should join too!

Ethan
Team MOYA

MOYA’s Street Team

You may have heard the term “street team” before.  If you haven’t, you will soon enough.  Street Team is a term used in marketing to describe a group of people who ‘hit the streets’ promoting an event or a product.  The idea started in the music industry, but has quickly been adopted and embraced by marketers across the board.

The idea is simple:  Gather a group of people, arm them with knowledge and promotional items relating to what you’re selling, and send them out to spread the word.  It is, in essence, the corporate version of missionaries.

The beauty of employing a street team in your marketing plan is that it’s inexpensive, effective, and more personal than standard advertising.  It’s grass roots, y’all.

As a small business owner, I’ve often felt overwhelmed – like I’m trying to convince the entire world that I’m worthy of its business, and doing so entirely on my own.  The simple act of creating a street team to represent MOYA has taken a great deal of that weight off my shoulders.  Now, I can go to sleep at night and rest easy knowing that, somewhere, someone is helping me get my company’s name out there.  There’s something very reassuring about knowing you’re not alone.

I just want to take a moment to introduce the MOYA Street Team.  These seven wonderful people have graciously volunteered to become Brand Ambassadors.  Kristy, Brandi, Kassie, Nicole, Krys, Lucinda, and Kristiana – thank you, ladies!

In return for representing the MOYA brand to people we wouldn’t otherwise be able to reach, each member of the street team receives a MOYA logo t-shirt.

Not-completely-official-but-kind-of-official MOYA Street Team gear.

If this proves to be a successful venture, we will design and print t-shirts specifically for the street team.

Thanks for clicking the link!

Leave a comment here.

Ethan (AKA “Charlie”)

Team MOYA

MOYA’s Blooper Reel

Yes, sometimes we make mistakes.  Or goof around.  Check out this short video of some of our classic blunders, silly jokes, and sweet dance moves.

The Wash Test

There are many different types of inks and dyes used in textile printing – plastisol, water-based, discharge, process…the list goes on.  Each of these inks has their own unique curing parameters.  Curing, of course, is the process of hardening or solidifying the ink to complete the transfer to substrate, therefore reducing the ink’s ability to wash out.

Here’s the rub, though.  There are so many variables that contribute to a print’s final cure – ink film thickness, effectiveness of equipment, quality of ink…even the color of the ink and garment are a factor – that it’s difficult to always be sure when your print is cured.  As if this wasn’t enough to worry about, an improperly cured print can fade in its first wash.  Imagine sending out an order of 300 improperly cured shirts.  That would be one unhappy customer.

If only there was a way…

Well, there is!  It’s called a Wash Test, and it’s as self-explanatory as it sounds.  Here’s how it works.

First, print a test shirt.  This should ideally be printed on the same type of garment you’re planning to use for the final run. 

Second, cure the test shirt in accordance with the curing parameters with which you’re most comfortable.  For example, plastisol is cured at (or around) 320 degrees.  Be sure to take extensive notes during this stage because, if it works, you’ll want to duplicate the steps exactly – “Test #1 – Cured with flash dryer for 45 seconds.”

Finally, cut the cured print in half with scissors and run one half through a full laundry cycle (wash and dry).  Now, compare the washed half of the print to the unwashed half.  If they’re both the same, your print is most likely cured correctly.  If the print lost ink or faded during the wash, run another test until you find the right combination.

 

Ethan