In December 2018, Bruce Ridge, Director of Technical Service at Nazdar, spoke to Lon Winters, Founder and Managing Director of Graphic Elephants in Elizabeth, Colorado. This interview is the latest in a series of articles intended to provide insight to the future of our industry from the perspective of members of Academy of Screen and Digital Printing Technologies (ASDPT).
Bruce Ridge: Where does the name Graphic Elephants come from?
Lon Winters: Going back almost 25 years ago, we had a company named Graphic Elements. I was the President and minority owner. My partner owned 55 retail resort stores. We built up an operation that was doing several million impressions a year. Business changed with the retail stores and soon we were the most profitable part of the business. We broke off and built a new company. The name Graphic Elephants represented the good that was left and was a bit of a tongue twister.
BR: Is Print This, Inc. a part of Graphic Elephants?
LW: We are in the midst of a re-brand. Print This, Inc is our corporate name established in 1993. Graphic Elephants is the brand. Print This is sort of the parent company. We have multiple segments under the Graphic Elephants brand. Screen Printing, Embroidery, Digital Printing, Retail Brands, Educational Materials and the Consulting.
BR: Your company is located in a small town in Elizabeth, Colorado. How did you come to settle down there?
LW: I went to college in Nebraska, where I graduated with Math and Art majors. Perfect for screen printing, right? My wife insisted that we better get away from our college friends for our own safety, so I took a job with Ocean Pacific in Denver, Colorado and learned how to screen print. I started as an ink tech in the late 80s for $4.05 an hour and became the Production Manager within a year. Being country folk, we ended up in a small ranching community outside of the big city.
BR: I once worked with the OP plant in Costa Mesa, California in the mid 1980s. I seem to remember that company imploding?
LW: The brand still exists. And some of the big box stores still carry their shirts and flip-flops. Surf wear is still sold throughout the country. They were one of the original surf brands and it is sad they fell apart.
BR: There are lots of videos of yours on YouTube. Many seem to be part of your workshops. How often do you do them?LW
I have learned a lot by doing this. There is a lot for me to learn. So instead of being the expert, it was time for me to listen more. There is so much to be learned in the new business space. Especially from young people that are building their businesses in this new market space.
In the online age, everyone is an expert. It used to be you had to do something for many years before you became the expert. That has changed. It is a very competitive arena where there is so much out there that is free. Some of it is good and some not so good.
Since there are consultants and suppliers offering training for free, it makes it very difficult for anyone to charge for training, no matter how good it is.
BR: Do you do training outside of your company?
LW: I continue to write, speak and exhibit for Printwear magazine (NBM), and I participate on several SGIA committees. I try to be as active as I can with the garment decorating community.
BR: On your website, your company lists consulting and printing. How much of your business is in consulting or training?
LW: The consulting part is substantial. I'd say it is 30-40% or more of our business and it keeps me on the road 2-3 weeks a month. We have changed the model to be more of a retainer type arrangement. Many of our clients are manufacturers and distributors that we have worked with for 20+ years. We help provide solutions for their customers.
BR: Have you done workshops or training in Europe?
LW: We are doing work for Virus in Italy. Most of the time, when we do our work, we are using or recommending products for the simple reason that they work and we use them. We are not getting paid to recommend products. It is difficult to stay an independent consultant, but we have done our best to remain so.
BR: You mention the Virus water-based inks? Do you use them in your shop?
LW: Yes we do. We have been working with [Virus president] Beppe for 11 or 12 years now. We have done workshops for them years ago with their HSA and hybrid inks. We have developed a good relationship with them which has been good for the both of us.
BR: When do you recommend someone use HSA/water-based vs. plastisol and what is HSA?
LW: We are different in our working model. We do a lot of development for the manufacturers. Our client base is not typical. We have to jump back and forth from plastisol, to HSA hybrid, to silicone, to discharge. It is not easy to move from one to another.
HSA stands for high solids acrylic. But there is so much more than that available in this hybrid technology.
What we tell people when moving to HSA hybrid, is you must be all in and make a conversion. Most printers struggle with screen making. Once you move toward this technology from plastisol, you really see screen making issues if they exist. Many companies are terrible at screen making and they don't know it until they jump in to something like this.
The new technology can be complicated. These inks contain water and solvent. Most printers have moved to LED exposure, so we need a stencil that is water-, solvent- and abrasion-resistant while at the same time being LED compatible. The bottom line, this isn't your grandfathers' water-based ink.
BR: What stencils are you using for the HSA inks?
LW: Most manufacturers are now making hybrid photopolymer and diazo emulsions, and in the United States we want them to be reclaimable. Even though there is talk in the US about converting to water-based, we don't see it happening that fast just yet. It is like the move to non-PVC inks. The major brands and some of the smaller brands forced this, but many printers won't go this way until they absolutely must for their own client base.
BR: How does Graphic Elephants image its screens?
LW: We image our screens with a direct to screen system. We have an I-Image with onboard exposure. We bought it about five years ago as more of a want than a need. It took me about a month to see it was going to pay for itself in a couple of months. The economic return was obvious. But the other benefits associated with image quality in not dealing with film, glass, dirt, and registration issues really outweighed the cost benefits. You know, all the things Geoff McCue has been preaching about for decades. Having the relationships with other Academy members has really been beneficial for me and our company when it comes to making these types of technology decisions.
BR: Have you been involved with the THREADX conference and has it been beneficial?
LW: Yes. I am the chair of SGIA's Garment Decorators Committee who helped develop ThreadX It is different from anything else out there. We have a great program set for this year in San Diego. The emcee, riCardo Crespo has a great perspective and is an excellent presenter. Aaron Draplin is the keynote. Attendance is up from last year and we have a location for the 2020 conference. There was huge momentum at the end of the 2018 conference that we tried to capitalize on.
BR: Inkjet is now established in textile printing. In 2018 M&R introduced the combined processes with the digital squeegee. Does Graphic Elephants incorporate ink jet in its imaging?
LW: We do some inkjet, primarily for the one offs, and for a separate brand we have which is Tee-Towels. My wife runs this business. This is an online business where colorful and vintage images are printed on old school flour sack towels and other kitchen items. This lends itself to inkjet printing very well.
I think the M&R digital squeegee is very cool. I am under the impression that many of the contractors for the big brands have purchased them. A friend of mine uses one for printing for a big brand where they want full color photographic images without the appearance of dots even if the cost is three times what screen printing would be. But it gives them the look they are after.
The big advantage for them is they can produce 10 different samples a day as compared to two a day printing sim or traditional process in screen. For that use it fits.
Where it would work for me conceptually is, say I had a contract to print for different zoos. You could name-drop the zoo and then their main animal.
For example, Michelle Moxley at M&R has done some real nice work creating under bases with grayscales that work well for the highly transparent digital printing. That could really be dialed in for a black background. There is still some work that needs to be done for different colored backgrounds, but it is very promising.
BR: On your website you list simulated color process. Do you also print traditional subtractive CMYK process on shirts and if so when?
LW: Yes, that is what I grew up on. I was working at Golden Squeegee at the time and we got a contract from Leanin Tree cards. They wanted their great card images on shirts. So, I started to print process on shirts by ordering some separations from Mark Coudray. The result was terrible, so I called Mark and he suspected my screens were the problem, so he hooked me up with Andy Anderson. Andy was super helpful which really helped us to become successful in printing process color. This made us focus on screen making which is something we are really good at now. We always say in our training, "If you can control the screens, then you have a chance at controlling the process".
BR: Do you do any teaching or training at schools?
LW: We haven't done that yet. We have participated in the Skills USA / SGIA competitions for the last five years. We built Operation Screen Print with Dane Clement which is a modern, fresh spin on a Scott Fresener type of how to do black shirts from the ground up; from a pencil drawing to printed shirts. This has been offered to some schools, and many have used it as a curriculum. We are in the middle of reworking the program for on line delivery.
BR: I see there is still a lot of student entries in the SGIA Golden Image competition. It appears t-shirt printing in high schools and community colleges is alive and well.
LW: You're right. And you can do some pretty cool shirts even with one color. You don't need to be doing multicolor sophisticated images to have fun and make a statement. Inkjet and sublimation are also great ways to create images in schools in supplementing the screen printing of shirts.
BR: Where do you go to find new information on the industry and or inspiration for printing?
LW: Everywhere. There are so many options it is almost overwhelming. I think networking is important. Especially at the highest level. The best way you can do that is to contribute at the highest level. When you contribute you can then ask for those resources in return. I had a huge consulting gig recently and was a bit overwhelmed, so I reached out to a couple of my mentors, Mark Coudray and Joe Clarke and told them I needed them to act like mentors and help me out and they did. Being involved with SGIA, Skills USA, Printwear and The Academy have all help me connect with different people with expertise I may not have known otherwise. Contributing your time to these things really pays off in the long run not only for my own business, but for the community as a whole.
The Academy of Screen and Digital Printing Technologies (ASDPT) is composed of professionals that have dedicated a large part of their career to the education, development and innovation to the industry. This interview was conducted by Bruce Ridge, Director of Technical Service, Nazdar Ink Technologies. Bruce has been a member of the Academy of Screen and Digital Technologies since 2004.