Testing, testing, 123…

It’s been full speed ahead with Ashwood & B. Yesterday we started experimenting with some digital transfer printing and the results are looking good so far! The wonderfully helpful people at Crafty Computer Paper spent ages talking through their paper types and advising the best option to suit our needs. We bought 2 packs, one of their yellow grid and one of the red. Printing onto the paper was very easy and the print quality was just as good as anything I’ve ever had out of my printer. Once the print was dry, I cut around the image and then using the silicone paper provided ironed the print onto a T-shirt. It was a bit of a struggle getting the whole image to bond with the fabric, but we got their eventually. I’m really pleased with the result, it looks great on the light grey marl.

image 13139153_939900036127024_330467860108252429_nNext on the test pressing was one of our colour your own T-shirts. Various different types of pens were used to see how the reacted to the transfer paper, some worked better then others and we now have a list of do’s and don’ts . Poppy (complete with snapchat filter) is doing a wear test for me today and then we’ll pop them in the washing machine to see how they get on. Fingers crossed the pens we used are as permanent as they say they are!

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Funny What You Can Do With Photoshop These Days.

Actually I guess that title is wrong. It should read “It’s amazing what printers can do these days”. Gone are the days of the 5 colour print. Digital printing onto fabrics has revolutionised the role of the print designer. Our days used to be spent trying to get a print to look as good as possible with a limited number of colours that were dictated by the cost of screens and the limitations of the factories. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still a lots of that going on, especially in kidswear, but with the price of digital printing slowly coming down and the quality constantly going up, I wonder how long the old fashioned screen and roller printing factories have left. The images below are all prints produced in photoshop for Yumi and Uttam Boutique, some are more obviously digital then others.

Reinventing the wheel

One of the things you hear a lot of as a designer is “I want the same, but different”. If something is a best seller, buyers always want to recreate the success. Yumi had a best selling tunic shape, it was used every season here’s a few examples how I had to reinvent it… without actually changing it!