New post from Marshall Atkinson at Atkinsontshirt.com! Looking for the latest tip or trick to run your decorated apparel shop better?  You won’t find it in this article.
Nope.
All I have here is going to be a lot of work on your end if you decide to accept the challenges.  Think you have what it takes?  We’ll see.
Listed below are four things you should be doing in your shop and one that you should not.  Because it sounded catchy, I’m naming these the four do’s and a don’t.  I think these are the cornerstone of running your shop more efficiently.  They are somewhat interconnected, but very relevant.
Ready?  Here goes…

When registering screens for a multi-color job, always take into consideration the direction in which the squeegee will be pulled. Use the black or other dark color screen to register the design onto a light colored fabric, and the white or light color screen to register on dark fabrics.

With over twenty five years in the decorated apparel industry, I’ve spoken with all sorts of folks from shops in every corner of the country.  A good many have a lot of things worked out, and they are usually at the top of the food chain in their market niches.  Some are just ridiculously bad business people or ineffective at managing their processes in their shops. 
Why?
It’s as simple as connecting the dots.  A connects B.  If you don’t do A right, B isn’t going to work well.
We are all blinded by orders that have to ship.  That’s the number one excuse that I always hear when I’m asking “why don’t you do something about your problem?”.  People just don’t stop and think that if they solved for A better; B wouldn’t be such a headache.
Ok, so what the hell am I talking about now?  Let’s take a look at four super common problems.  These are in no particular order or ranking…but in your shop one could be more impactful than another.  Do any of these sound familiar?

Pulling a squeegee on a manual screen-printing press and transforming a blank T-shirt into a colorful piece of commercial art is one of the most ubiquitous starting points for jobs in the decorated apparel industry. 
Whether it is a basement- or garage-operated shop, or a large-scale industrial printer, manual printing always is in high demand. It seems so easy, but not everyone can do it. 

there's a basic mixture of crafsmanship, technical skill, science and, of course, some old-fashioned elbow grease. What are the key traits and skills that a rookie printer should know to be transformed into a seasoned, highly skilled master of the craft?
Below is a guideline to master the "Zen" of manually printing T-shirts and making a big mark in any shop.

A customer recently complained that when printing a low-bleed white ink onto a dark blue fabric, the ink changed color - but not to the expected blue hue. 
Instead, the white ink turned ... wait for it ... pink. The customer then sent us a sample of the fabric and we got the same results upon printing a while-ink design.

Here is the third part of Kieth’s article about the importance of using the right tool for the job and knowing what the tool can do.  If you missed the previous blogs, here you can read Part 1 and Part 2.  You can also read the full article (PDF) from here.