How did you get started?

[inkman996]

Tony you probably know where I started. I started by working on the supply side, everything soup to nuts, TUF, Vastex, and AWT equipment. Also screen making for all kinds of industries.

That was Sharp Products.

That was long enough ago we had one of the first Javelins as a demo, including a AWT Supertex that never went into production which we still have today.

[tonypep]

I like everyone's stories. I knew I would. The staple and glue story hits close to home. So long ago.
tp

[mk162]

Tony you probably know where I started. I started by working on the supply side, everything soup to nuts, TUF, Vastex, and AWT equipment. Also screen making for all kinds of industries.

That was Sharp Products.

That was long enough ago we had one of the first Javelins as a demo, including a AWT Supertex that never went into production which we still have today.

We had a Javelin demo as well.  That was a long time ago.

I grew up in the shop pretty much.  Went full time back there in '99 when I graduated from HS. Transitioned into sales in 2001 I think. Bought the shop in 2008 when my wife and I got married.

[dirkdiggler]

Went to work for someone else, started at the bottom of a GIANT shop, went to the very top.  After 14 years, quit to open my own shop.  9 years later, here I am still.  Very thankful, Very humble.

[T Shirt Farmer]

the beginning of September mom dragged all 3 boys down for crew cuts and trip to Mervyns for school duds. Nope never did get cool adidas shoes or levi jeans,but i loved looking at the printed tee shirts. My grandfather printed money in the mint his brother was master lithographer in SF so its kinda genetic in me. Started screen printing trace patterns and resist in a PC board shop in the 80's. Never graduated high school so hard work s what i know, maybe picked up some street smarts along the way;-)

[1964GN]

I started later in life at the age of 47 (in 2011). I spent 25 years in the furniture biz... management, customer service, logistics, etc. Things change, life happens. In 2011 I lied/muscled my way into an artist job at a small heat transfer company. I knew my way around PS but had to learn seps and more advanced art stuff on the fly. Big thanks to youtube as well. That place was, and still is, a $hit show so after 2 years I was hired by my current employer as a part time production artist. I just started coming in full time LOL

I am now the shops jack of all, master of none.

[BP]

In 1987 I was at a area career center printing offset. Are class took a trip to a screen printer in Lansing Michigan. I love the craft of screen printing and a week later I started to work for a small manual
shop in the darkroom and working on screens. I have had the printing bug for over 30 years. I still love jumping on a manual press and printing by hand to this day.

[mk162]

In 1987 I was at a area career center printing offset. Are class took a trip to a screen printer in Lansing Michigan. I love the craft of screen printing and a week later I started to work for a small manual
shop in the darkroom and working on screens. I have had the printing bug for over 30 years. I still love jumping on a manual press and printing by hand to this day.

Me too, for about 5 minutes

[bsdprint]

I was downsized from a large telecommunications company after 18 years in 2005.   After seeing the corporate side of business, I had a desire to work for myself and own a business.  My wife and I moved back to our hometown and started a small retail store.  I notice many of  our customers were wearing printed t-shirts.  Bought some printed shirts with “cheesy” saying on them and sold them all in our store. I said to myself...”how hard could that be to print those shirts”.  Started reading and watching videos on the internet and eventually found theshirtboard.com.  14 years later I am still printing, but the retail store has closed.

[3Deep]

I did a shoe design and sent it to Nike and they sent me some paper work to sign (thought I was going to be rich LOL) months later they send me my design back and a thank you.  About a year or so later I see Micheal Jordan wearing his new sneaker that look just like the one I had designed, so I went to a lawyer he ask did I sign any paperwork (YEP) he took a look and said bad move.  Well he ask if I had any other designs I said yes, then he said, why don't you print these on some T-shirts and sell them, so I found this book How to Print T-shirts for fun and Profit....built my first press from the plans in the book and here I am 17 years later, and still have tons of stuff to learn.   Moving from a homemade press printing on my wife kitchen table and dryer shirts in her oven LOL to nice building with a auto and embroidery equipment and a few manual press's stilling sitting around.

[stitches4815]

I'll try to make a long story short.  I am a career firefighter/paramedic and my wife worked for John Deere Health.  John Deere decided to get out of health insurance and sold that division to United Healthcare.  Once the sale was completed the bloodshed began (fortunately she wasn't let go for another 10 years).  We came up with Plan A, purchase a local embroidery shop.  After the initial purchase agreement, they tried to go back on the deal.  We walked away.  Called Hirsch, met with a salesman, was shown how an embroider machine works, he answered all questions and we bought a nice 4 head Tajima.  He suggested that we go to ISS and learn more about the industry, so we did.  While at ISS we bought a vinyl cutter and heat press thinking this would open up new avenues.  After a year in business we determined we needed to add screen printing because the vinyl wasn't working.  Here we are 13 years later, we are so busy I am having trouble keeping up.  We expanded screen printing even more by purchasing an auto.  Life is good!

[Dottonedan]

I guess I will lump in any commercial art I did that led me into screen printing.


In 1982, I was in high school and started painting our High School "Brooke Bruin Bear" mascot signs for businesses. They would hang them on the outside wall of their business. I had done a few paintings or drawings of peoples houses for cash and also a few other signs for people and businesses. I guess you could say I was into Freelance art before graduating high school. A lot of hand painted lettering and characters. I got my first introduction into screen printing by the head coach of the wrestling team for our high school. The coach needed an assistant and me and few friends were just hanging around watching one day and he offered my friend the job. I remember being disappointed internally as I knew my friend wasn't interested in the slightest but took it anyway. That was my first missed opportunity. Had I been able to nab that job, I'd of taken a different route early on and maybe saved a lot of money on art school.


After graduating high school, I obtained an Assoc. degree in commercial art at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, PA. I went to school for a straight 2 years without breaks in summers to get to work quicker. Once I graduated, I did a test run of interviews. I would cold call all of the targeted business's and schedule a "courtesy interview".  All of them accepted. I targeted key areas that I wanted to live in. Once of with was in the area of my Brother in Baltimore. It happed to be, that a guy I graduated with was looking in that area al, and we decided to bunk together during our search. Apparently people were very welcoming to this type of approach and I learned a lot about interviewing and where I stood as a graduate of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh.  That degree was useless. The Advertising industry (Agencies, Studios) didn't respect the AIP at all. They critiqued my portfolio and liked the Illustrations. I was offered freelance very often, but no job offers. Well, I had one on the hook but it didn't pan out for several months down the road and I wanted a job NOW. A lot of money went into that school and I learned it was considered a low end education.


During my hunt, about 4 weeks of traveling and interviewing, I was determined to land a job. Any job! I knew the school loan payments would be starting soon and I had it in my head to get them paid off asap or they were going to take me away somewhere. I must have went through 40 interviews.  Well, (it seems like it anyways).  Then, I noticed a low paying job in the screen printing business needing a "graphic artist". I was now desperate and It paid $5.50 an hr to start. no benefits. (Not great, but decent back then when you had nothing). I think by the time I left, I had moved up to $6.00 an hr. It was a screen print shop. (Not apparel), but screen printing non the less.  Right away, and even before graduating, I was intrigued by how it was done, to actually break the colors down into individual color separations and was able to print it one at a time over top of each other and bring it all together again in print.


My first job, was not doing art, but prepping mechanicals for the films to be burnt. That position was called a "Film Stripper". We screen printed large buss backs, posters for retail stores, Formica panels for museums, and even super mega sized outdoor banners for events. Our largest was about 4 stories tall, and was strung up between two large buildings in Pittsburgh. (The PPG building and another) next to it.


At this job, I ran stat camera for the smaller stuff, and also hand cut ruby. Customers would send in black and white on board, and I would put it in a projector called a Lucy and project it on the wall about 15-20 feet away depending.  I would then lay amberlyth over top, tape it to the wall and use a ruler and hand cut the films. I got really good at cutting amberlyth for smaller signs and banners. Sometimes, cutting amberlyth with full paragraphs. (A lot of letter cutting).  I printed manually now and then, when someone was out, but that was never really "my job". So yes, I printed and loved it, but didn't ever hold job title "as a printer". Even to this day actually.


After that, I moved into Pennsylvania and worked at a Glass factory called HOUZE Glass (named after L. J. Houze who was a Belgium immigrant and came from a family of glass workers.  I was one of about 7 Production/graphic artist. At that time, they were a well known ASI/PPAI manufacturer. All of the laborers were UNION and that alone, was interesting but that's another story. It had been open since 1902 and they used to produce the glass in the eye goggles for the pilots during both world wars. Any Warhol and Peter Max had both been there at some point having product produced. (I had one of Peter Max's Ash trey works given to me) by my art director, but sadly, it had gotten broken in one of my many moves. They manufactured glass there and shipped in ceramic mugs and whatnot. That was pretty cool. It had a lot of old history there and you could;d see it in the old buildings and surroundings (resting along the river side). The art department was in a small block building in the back of the plant, outside the large, long manufacturing building. We (the art department) were considered the "black sheep the Union members. The elite or the privileged. They felt we ere (not quite union laborers and not quite company) because we were hourly, but didn't really work for a living since all we did was art. LOL.  With this shop, came a lot of the "This is the way we had always done it" mentality but is really where I grew with computers and color separating.


As far as direct printing on glassware and mugs, we were pretty advanced, using 5 color Malcom printers (presses manufactured in England). Registration needed a 2pt line trap because no cylinder mug or glass was identical in size/circumference. You could not make them perfectly uniform.


In the art dept. We used to block out pin holes using an opaque clay mud "slip" (just add water) and a fine point brush over a light table.  The camera man was the Union President. A lot of stories there. He ran a horizontal camera where the art was out at the end on one side (outside the camera room) extended about 10-12'. On the other side of the wall, was the camera in the dark room and where he did a lot of his "private Union back door negotiations".


I had moved on after 6 years of working there (to my first apparel shop), but they closed the doors in 2000 due to a Union dispute. The owner closed up and moved the business to Texas under a new name.

My next job brings me into the apparel industry. I worked at a company called Ohio Pyle prints, located in the mountains of Ohio Pyle Pa. they did (name drop) outdoor adventure souvenir tees and resort wear. I really felt like I had found my home creatively and technically. I fell in love with apparel printing right then and there. I was able to draw/Illustrate and have the control to create my own separation. We used high end equipment and put out very high end apparel.

This time period was at the height of simulate process taking off. Think back to the super large NFL Mascot characters in simulated process, started off by John Weiss and crew at New Buffalo Shirt factory, Think of Rick Roth at Mirror Image, Target Graphics (CMYK on darks), Mark Coudrey's and Andy Anderson all in their prime. This is when I got my real start into Apparel and was sooo inspired by what they were doing.


I've had many more jobs since then, and each job was filled with great people and a comradery that I really thrive on and enjoy very much. I guess this is why I like forums so much.


Thanks for staying with me on my trip. It's been a great ride.

[RICK STEFANICK]

I got a job in 1980  running progress cylinder press doing microwave touch panels. It was a job I could smoke weed every day at the time and they did not mind.  Very young and dumb but That's the times it was and the transparent truth and why I took the job. 

[StinkyDaddy]

I started in art school in the mid 80's. I had a printmaking class, screen printing was one of the methods. While home on break I was airbrushing at the mall location of a screen printer and ended up doing some of his art. After college I started working as a staff artist for a decent size shop while I was looking for a better gig. Spent a year there before I had enough freelance work to go out on my own doing medical illustration. I started my own shop a few years later as a side gig for when illustration and design were slow. I kept printing thinking it would pay the bills til one of my "real art" things took off. 30 years later screen printing still pays the bills.

[aauusa]

I was installing telephone and computers systems in target dept stores up till 2001.   parents bought the business in 95 and they needed help and I was done working/traveling 11 months out  of the year so came back with no knowledge about anything and just dove in as the art production person and just learned everything from there.  school of just figure a way to get it done.  first 2 years were a beast and very stressful.  but never gave up and just kept learning and improving and growing the business.  no one really trained me was self taught on corel and photoshop,  minimal training in manual printing and self taught everything else in screen printing and dye sublimation, and embroidery.

now it is second hand nature.   my employees are always saying you make it look so easy how do you know the problem before you even look at the issue.   been there done than made all the mistakes you can imagine.  nothing surprises me much now.  as I have seen it all or most of it.  18 years of the same thing you get used to it and it is like an old glove just fit nicely.  but I do work way to much but I love it so I keep doing it.  no wife no kids less than 3 friends  so my work is my baby and will always be.   I like providing a pay check for my employess and the responsibility that comes with it along with the headaches and stress.  but even that you can manage when it gets tough.   my go to saying when something goes wrong is "well no one died so that is a good thing"