We’re proud to announce that Jakprints’ Screen-Printing Production Manager, Jeff Weisenberg has authored another article in Printwear, the leading industry/trade magazine for apparel embellishment.

Jeff’s latest article is featured in the August 2010 issue and is entitled “Don’t Fear The Fleece”. Within it he shares some printing tips and techniques he’s developed through the years, and talks about dealing with the various problems and pitfalls that can arise when printing on hoodies and sweats.

It’s another great read from Jeff, as he is able to tackle these technical subjects, while injecting a some personality and humor into it. Click here to check out the Printwear article.

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We’re proud to announce the launch of Jakprints Touch & Feel online store! Touch & Feel is a collection of printed and embellished sample products specifically created to showcase a variety of techniques.

Through Touch & Feel, we’re hoping to inspire creativity as well as educate people about techniques and stocks. We want customers to have confidence in what they’re ordering, and make sure they are getting exactly what they want.

Lauren catches a low-impact, “Eco-Monkey” bamboo-tee as it emerges from the dryer.

Anthony makes sure everything is going well with the hybrid-inks on “Digi-Grill.”

“Solid-Gold” (a soft-opaque ink t-shirt) getting a fresh coat of metallic foil.

“Glow Girl” is printed in hybrid-ink and features a glow-ink overprint.

Josh checks out “Burn-Out”, a shirt that showcases our discharge ink.
Check out more samples, stocks, and techniques at the Touch & Feel Store!

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Today the wide-format department was working on posters for “Pinned“, a documentary about high school wrestling in Ohio. The film is currently in the editing stages, but will soon be completed by the Norman brothers of Lakewood Films. The 27 x 40 inch poster was designed by Jeff Finley of Go Media, and features the tagline, “Blood. Sweat. Bears.” Yeah, you read that correctly, bears. Come on, high school wrestlers and bears??? You can’t go wrong.

Matto loads a roll of the wide-format photo paper.

It is not recommended that you feed any bears. It is however, perfectly okay for Matto to feed our Mutoh printer.

Matto prepares the artwork and sends it through the rip…

…the poster artwork emerges from the printer.

Matto carefully trims the final posters. Thanks to Go Media, and best of luck to the Norman brothers on the release of their film! Check out their site lakewoodfilms.com for details on their forthcoming release.

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You can’t avoid it, and everyone apparently loves it. Yes, I’m talking about James Cameron’s Avatar. True, it has a lot of computerized 3-D effects, but come on people, let’s get back to basics. I’m talking old-school stereoscopic goodness, the View-Master.

Matt Bergstrom of Wurlington Press knows what I’m talking about, because he’s taking it old school with his View-Master reels of classic Chicago landmarks.

We produced two of the three components for Wurlington Press’ View-Master project: the custom die-cut outer package, as well as the 8 panel folded insert. (The actual reels were produced by View-Master.)

The View-Master reel fits inside the 8-panel insert, which then fits snugly inside the custom package.

Here’s the actual die that made the cut, next to a flattened piece.

This side of the die must be handled with care. Watch those fingers, kids!

Here’s the project in its entirety. Thanks again to Wurlington Press, check out their View-Master project and others at wurlington-bros.com.

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At Jakprints, we’re always looking for ways to make our work-flow more streamlined, efficient and eco-friendly. Which means we’re always on the lookout for new advances in technology. Enter the latest addition to our screen-printing work-flow, the I-Jet.

The I-Jet is a direct to screen writer (DTS) that is top of the line in screen imaging. From an environmental standpoint, we’re pleased because the I-Jet allows us to do away with film positives. We’re avoiding film because with our workload we would use hundreds of feet of film on a daily basis that would basically end up in a landfill.

Here we see Sam loading digital artwork into the system, as well as cross referencing the customer approved mock-up.

After staging the files in the I-Jet rip, Sam loads an emulsified screen.

The print head of the I-Jet prints directly onto the mesh of the screen with a wax-based organic pigment…

…making it completely opaque and light-safe when the screen is exposed.

Sam exposes the screen.

After curing the emulsion, the organic drain-safe pigment is then washed off the screen and is ready to go on press.

The loaded screen is inked and ready.

Anthony makes a test print and begins running the shirts.

Along with the environmental benefits, the I-Jet also produces detail as fine as 120 lines per inch, which gives us even greater control and clarity, making for an exceptionally detailed print.

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Congrats to our Screen-Printing Production Manager, Jeff Weisenberg. He was recently approached by Printwear to contribute an article to their magazine. Printwear is the leading industry/trade magazine for apparel embellishment.

The article is featured in the January 2010 issue and is entitled “Troublesome T-Shirts?” It focuses on the technical problems that arise when screen-printing on different types of apparel with various techniques. Jeff addresses several issues, and offers some great suggestions and solutions that he’s discovered through his 11 years at Jakprints.

The article is written with screen-printers in mind, but Jeff manages to take a technical subject and breathe some life into it, making for an entertaining yet informative read. Click here to check out a PDF of the Printwear article.

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We’re running our free metallic gold special through December 2009. With that in mind, we’ve put together a quick tutorial on setting up a spot color in Adobe Illustrator. For those of you that are new to setting up files with a spot color (or for anyone that might want a refresher) this is a high quality upload so you can see all the details in full screen.

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