Ink color matching

Picking ink colors is an integral part to any good design.  So mixing ink colors becomes a very important process in screen printing.  All color is printed as spot color, which will be discussed soon in an upcoming post.  Since it’s hard to describe colors verbally, there is an ink matching system known as PMS or Pantone Matching System.  Any good printer will have a PMS swatch book in their possession .

Computer monitors can not replicate how colors will actually print, so picking a PMS color insures that you and the printer are on the same page when it comes to color.  Even though most design programs have PMS color swatches you can use in your design, they often differ greatly to the actual printed swatch in the book – so it’s always good to check the book.

Or you can do what one of our recent clients did and bring over a paint swatch of the actual color they wanted to use.  When we can see the actual color, we can usually match it ~ like the greens above.

Urban Airship printed by Phantom Chicken

Gregg is currently printing another order for Urban Airship.  Urban Airship is a local Portland company…  quoting from their site:

Urban Airship is the engine behind thousands of the world’s most successful mobile apps, providing a full suite of messaging and content delivery tools, including Push Notifications, Rich Media Messaging, In-App Purchase and Subscriptions. Our platform can help you maximize the success of your app allowing you to build a strategy that will bring people back to your app day after day, extending its life and value.

Their design was printed using a fun ink process called “discharge printing” where the ink we use actually releases the dye of the shirt, leaving undyed fabric showing for the print.  This leaves the garment smooth and soft, and the image will last as long as the garment with no cracking or peeling.  It only works on 100% cotton, but the result is awesome!

I wonder how many t-shirts that would translate into… thousands for sure!  Some of those are for the Hair of the Dog Brewing company ~ which is what Gregg is currently working on.  Go Gregg!

Tea towels have been becoming very popular lately, especially at Victory Garden of Tomorrow.  Gregg just finished this run for them… and they turned out great!  Of course, we LOVE anything with a chicken on it… how ’bout you?  …Want one?  Get it here now.

pretty inks all mixed and ready to print

Recently we were contacted by a local designer to print some work… and his designs had chickens on them!  How fun is that?   So, we wanted to give a ‘shout out’ to Joe Wirtheim at Victory Garden of Tomorrow.  His aesthetic is based on WWII propaganda posters, and his goal is to promote backyard gardening.  Such a great idea and campaign to get us all thinking progressively!

Above are the inks we just mixed for Joe’s Atomic Chicken design for shirts.  When we mix his colors we go for a vintage feel… so far so good!  Check out the colors on the shirts.  They’ll be available to purchase here… as soon as Gregg finishes printing them!

That’s right, Gregg and I will be bringing our press and screens down to Rontoms (600 E. Burnside) for a screen printing demo this Wednesday July 13, 2011.

This social networking event is being sponsored by AIGA dMob dLux and you can read more about it here.

Hope to see you there,
Gregg & Gail

The Chicken got some *warm fuzzies* from our client Holly O’Leary yesterday.  She is a fantastic graphic designer here in town and she brought us some yummy cookies  because we finished up a job for her within her deadline.  Isn’t that so sweet?

There is so much sweetness happening here ~ Gregg has been printing steadily this week, keeping up with larger orders (and some smaller ones too), even though he had to take a day to have some teeth pulled!   He finished a run of dogs for Hair of the Dog Brewing, the Kitchen Crü shirts for Holly O., another order for Urban Airship, a reprint of the Uncle Jive shirts for Jive Software, and a reprint of more guitar pedals for NSP, and a couple small orders for Laurelthirst Pub and the JVC’s… and he did ALL of this work THIS WEEK!

Next week is just as full… plus we’ll be printing Dingo and Olive’s Seahorse Design too ~ so if you would like to pre-order that shirt… NOW is the time!

Our friends, Dingo Dizmal and Olive Rootbeer are tall-bike-riding-clowns with great balloon and entertainment skills… but they are also fantastic artists ~ and their art focuses on rubber chickens.  Of course, we at Phantom Chicken love any kind of chicken art, but rubber chicken art has a special place in our hearts!

Dingo and Olive decided to have us print some shirts for them using this design from their coloring book:  The Celebrated Rubber Chickens of Dingo Dizmal and Olive Rootbeer.

We are trying to help them out and are offering PRE-ORDER sales for t-shirts with this design here.

I love this design…  we hope you will too!

The Chicken has been a bit disheartened about cotton prices being on the rise… a big rise in fact.  Our distributors  increased shirt prices by 40% over 2010 and I just got word that another hefty increase is on it’s way starting in April.

What does that mean for Phantom Chicken clients?  We will try to bear the brunt of these cost increases, but unfortunately will have to institute a small price increase on all shirts.   Please contact us before your next order to get an updated quote, so there are no surprises.

We are also highly recommending increasing your retail rates for shirt sales.  Really.  If you want to give away your shirts, that is fine, but in reality $18-$20 for a basic custom printed t-shirt should be the norm.

Why are cotton prices going up?  There are a few reasons listed in this article by Parija Kavilanz.
In a nutshell, the US does not produce much cotton anymore ~ China and India’s cotton production is first being offered to Chinese and Indian markets, before being offered to US.  Pakistan is the other major supplier of cotton, but they have been inundated with flooding which has decreased cotton production immensely.   This, plus the rise in fuel costs, has forced the price of cotton to go up… and it will probably continue to rise through the year.

I know personally, we still shop at the same supermarket, even though food prices have also gone up considerably… so we are hoping that our quality of printing and customer service will keep you coming back to Phantom Chicken for your screen printing needs.