Screen Printing - April/May 2016 - (Page 18)

The Top ArT MisTAkes And how To Avoid TheM Thomas Trimingham A lot of shop owners get down on themselves when errors happen in production, forgetting that a certain amount of variability comes with the territory. Especially when you do a lot of custom screen printing, the art, job setup, and printing parameters can be different on every order you do. When no two jobs are the same, it's not really a surprise if the artwork doesn't come out well a certain percentage of the time and it doesn't necessarily mean you have a problem in your art department. Sometimes, the best you can do is address the most common issues in your shop and be prepared to troubleshoot others as they come up. In a sense, your goal can be to raise your poor prints from Lowresolution originals 1 This is an extremely common issue. Clients continually supply artwork that was designed for the web, found on someone else's website, or otherwise developed for internet display. Webbased art is 72 dpi at the actual screen size, and was never intended to be screen printed. When such artwork is enlarged for a full-sized shirt design, it will be pixelated as well as difficult to prep and edit. The best and most common way to address this concern is to immediately contact the client and see if a better version of the artwork is available. Unfortunately, a lot of times the answer is no, leaving you with several choices. You can recreate the design yourself or send it out to someone with the skills to do the work, attempt to edit it, or refuse the job. If you are savvy with computer graphic software, recreating or editing the design will give you the most options in printing the job. Providing such a service also gives you added credibility with your client. Just be aware of the time that you will need to invest to 18 screenprinting percentage of successes rather than focus on how many errors are happening. One of the top ways to accomplish more in your art department is to look for areas that consistently cause problems. These will be different from one shop to the next, but certain issues are typically at the top of the list and chances are that at least some of the five common ones covered below are still plaguing your shop. The key to making progress in these trouble spots once you identify them is to focus on specific ways they can be avoided and develop procedures to counter the issues before they show up again. make these changes. Many shops aren't, leading to cost estimates that can be all over the map. (See Figure 1.) Most clients get nervous paying for art time on a printing job and some will go to a competitor if you intend on recouping art fees to recreate their files. Often, it's easier to estimate the time and then bury the cost in your quote rather than itemize it and risk sticker shock that will stall the process or possibly cancel the sale. This also applies if you are sending the artwork out to be recreated by a service. Make sure the order size and value justifies the cost of preparing the artwork so that it doesn't have you upside down just to finish the job. FiGUre 1 KnOW tHE COSt OF LOW-rESOLUtiOn ArtWOrK Many customers submit low-resolution files taken from a website or other source not designed for screen printing, but most don't want to pay you to fix them. Whether you give the customer an itemized bill or spread the costs across the total purchase price, you should know the time and/or money it takes to address this problem. 4 hrs $200 1

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Screen Printing - April/May 2016

Screen Printing - April/May 2016
Contents
Editorial Insights
Pressing Issues
New Products
A 5-Minute Sales and Marketing Plan
The Top 5 Art Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
Stencilmaking in the Age of CTS
After the Print: Breaking the Logjam in Finishing
Distributor/Dealer Directory
Classifieds
Ad Index
It Looks Good on Paper

Screen Printing - April/May 2016