Words By: Ice Cream Man! Photos By: Jeremiah Garcia!

Primary Flight is my favorite non-music event we sling cream at all year.  This was our third year down in Miami for the street mural project that takes place during Art Basel.  What started four years ago has become the largest street mural project in the world.  Hundreds of artists fly in from all over and are given walls by Primary Flight to cover. Not only does PF seem to be getting bigger but the walls a lot of the artists are painting seem to be increasing in size as well.  The best part about being down there is that we get to drive an ice cream truck around the whole time giving away treats and watching the works or art as they’re being created.

I wasn’t sure if we were going to be able to make it down this year but Jakprints stepped up to sponsor us and Cory drove Beau from Long Beach to Florida so we’d have our own truck there (last year was a catastrophe and the truck we rented broke down).  Because we loaded up the back freezer with the last of our Ben & Jerry’sstash of ice cream we were able to start slinging pretty early on Thursday.  Our main goal was to act as an artist support truck supplying cream, pops, water, chips and candy to the painters, many of them stuck in the sun all day.  We also wanted to act as a public outreach truck for Primary Flight and we handed out maps and told people where some of our favorite walls were.  People often say I have the best job in the world and it sure felt like it the last five days.

Words don’t really do any justice for what went down while we were there so you should just check out Jeremiah’s pics on the right.  He’s shot PF every year and did a great job and getting pics of most everything down there.  There were so many great pieces this year.  It seemed like most people would agree that How and Nosm, two artists from Germany was the best piece… or the one that grabbed everyone’s attention when they entered the Kohn Compound.  That compound also had Surge’s Karate Cat piece which was a painting of a girl who wanted Hello Kitty to come to her birthday party but the dad couldn’t afford it so he got Karate Cat, and the kids are kinda bummed.  Jim and Tina Darlingbrought out their friend Eugene Good to help them with a sculpture made of found wood that was a head spitting out a wave with a boat… yeah… nuts!

Witnes, Sinner and a lot of the Ironlak crew were on the far wall, which had a bitchin’, crazy alien looking character in the corner.

The Cafeina compound one block over had a bunch of artists painting and the Trusto Corp crew brought out some custom made carnival games that made things fun.  Dabs & Myla (who created our last Off the Wookie cover with Surge) had a great spot straight back from the entrance and Joe Iurato was next to them.  Reyes had a large wall which I dug and Ron English split a wall with Mr. Jago and Tristan Eaton, which made his skull smiley face character pop out even more.  Tatiana Suarez, Aiko and a couple other female artists were also putting up work in the front area next to the bike tour program they had setup.  It wasn’t directly related to the bike tour program, but a month ago I heard about a cool new project called Contrail that leaves chalk lines from bike tires and Theresa and Pepin who run it made some art pieces in the streets and outlined a route in the street so people could follow it and see a good chunk of the PF murals.

I’d love to mention all the other cool art I saw down there but there’s just too much.  M-City stayed with us and we helped him finish his cool aquarium SS mural because his stencils got lost in Germany and he had to bust out a 50×20 foot mural in 10 hours.  Anthony Lister had pieces all over the place it seemed and his ‘car on fire’ piece next to Asylm was pretty damn cool.  There was an extra large boom box painted next to the graffiti wall of fame and plenty of other cool pieces from artists like Bask, Tes One, London Police, Burning Candy, Mers, Dolla, Kofie, Chor Boogie, Jeff Soto and Maxx 242, and many more I can’t think of right now while I’m on the plane.  I missed a lot of the artists in the main Primary Flight compound who had some of the best lettering you’d ever see.

Thanks to Jakprints for making the cream slinging possible.  They just introduced favicards and you should check those out at favicard.com they’re like small business cards for social network type things.  Thanks to Logan Hicks for originally getting so many of ‘us’ involved in Primary Flight and who’s floors I used to sleep on down there.  His main piece this year was in Wynwood Walls along with additional pieces by Ron English, Jeff Soto and others.  Thanks for Cory for driving down, Jeremiah for the pics and to all the great cuban food and restaurants.  Yum..   Thanks to all the PF crew too; Books, Typoe, Lynn and Chris, and Mike.  I’m on the plane back now and already excited to get back down there next year!

You can check out more pictures from Primary Flight by Jeremiah Garcia on the Jakprints Flickr page!

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Growing a solid mustache has been a notable feat since the beginning of time.  The geniuses over at Mustaches for Kids understood this and have been harnessing the power of the ‘stache to help raise money for children’s charities since 1999.  They even have Weird Al Yankovic as a supporter!

This Thursday at Musica the Akron Chapter of Mustaches for Kids will be throwing the Stache Bash which is the culmination of four intense weeks of mustache growth.  There will be music, libations, and of course the King of Staches will be crowned.  Apparently there may be a Queen of Staches too.  We haven’t seen any in person yet but from the video there were some impressive female mustaches!

Jakprints produced several t-shirt designs for Mustaches for Kids that will be given to the participants and sold to help raise additional money for Boys and Girls Clubs of the Western Reserve.  The design on white (above) is a two location print on an American Apparel 2001 Fine Jersey Short Sleeve T-Shirt which is the name brand staple for fine jersey t-shirts.  For the design on blue (below) they also went with two locations but changed the t-shirt up to the American Apparel TR401 Tri-Blend Short Sleeve Track Shirt which has been a very popular product to print on this year.

Stop on in to the Stache Bash this Thursday (12/09/10).  The festivities begin at 7:00pm at Musica. It’s $10 to get in at the door and if you have a mustache you get in free.  You can buy one of these snazzy shirts there too.  Proceeds from the door charge and t-shirt sales will go to the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Western Reserve.

If you can’t make it you can still donate on the Mustaches for Kids website and join them on Facebook too.  They will be taking donations for about another month and of course you will have to work on your mustache growing skills for next year. This goes for you too ladies!

Remember to support a ‘stache – It’s for the kids!

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In the apparel screenprinting department here at Jakprints we use a wide variety of inks, bases, and pigments to recreate your design.  We factor in the size of the print, the colors in the design, the number of inks needed to replicate your design, the apparel type, and the apparel fabric blend.  By combining a variety of ink types with custom color separations on each job we can achieve an extremely wide range of looks and feels on your print.

When it comes time to mix up inks for a job I have full flexibility of what comes out of the ink lab and goes into the press that’s printing your job.  Depending on the project we can use plastisol, water based, or discharge printing inks.  By using different base and pigment combinations we have complete control over pigment loads which will effect the final print on your product.  I can increase the pigment load for more vibrant and opaque print or decrease it for a more vintage look and feel.

The number of ink options that we have here in the Jakprints ink lab lends itself to a very creative and innovative print shop.  Inks, along with color separations, are the foundation of a top quality print.  It gives me the best feeling to work through my options in the ink lab and then see the amazing results of the completed product coming off the end of the dryer.  These results are possible by a combination of the experience and professionalism of the separations department and print staff  along with my knowledge of our ink systems, color theory, and our ability to innovate during each step of the process.

To learn more about our ink capabilities check out our Screen Printing Inks page.  If you have any other questions feel free to contact our sales staff at 877-246-3132.  Just tell them The Inksmith sent you!

Blake Simone – The Inksmith

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Primary Flight is a street art installation that happens in conjunction with Art Basel Miami Beach. It includes murals from many artists in many different locations throughout the Wynwood Arts District and the Miami Design District.

Art Basel Miami Beach is essentially a city-wide art hop that runs from December 2nd through December 5th. It is the sister event to Art Basel in Switzerland. The event in Switzerland has been taking place there for 41 years. At this year’s event in Miami there will be over 250 leading art galleries from North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa who will exhibit 20th and 21st century artworks by over 2,000 artists.

Primary Flight is a perfect complimentary event as most of the global artists that participate are in town for Art Basel.  Effectively building the world’s first open air street level museum, Primary Flight’s impact is felt year round by both beautifying blighted neighborhoods and showcasing art in creation to residents, visitors, collectors and laymen alike.

Jakprints role in this years Primary Flight event was to produce merchandise as well as other products to promote the event.  The range of products includes Maps (18×24 inch Posters folded 4 times to create 18 panels), Postcards, Posters, Stickers, Crew Neck T-Shirts for the event staff, Artist Crew Neck T-Shirts for both Men and Women, embroidered Hats, Bandanas, Perfect Bound Catalogs, and custom Favicards.

If you’re in the Miami Beach area this weekend check out this event.  There will definitely be lots to see!  If you can’t make use the links above to get an idea of the global scale of this project.  Whether you need a promotions and merchandise for a city-wide event like Primary Flight or just want to promote your Facebook page we can help.  Give our sales staff a call at 877-246-3132 to get started!

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