Success Stories EP 26 - "The Ups and Downs of Hybrid Printing Technology" with Sean Kirkpatrick

One of the most fascinating developments in apparel print technology that has surfaced in the past few years has been the development of hybrid digital and screen printing technology. This means that screens are used for the underbase, and a digital print is printed over that.

This gives the shop plenty of capabilities to explore and capitalize on with their product offerings, workflow, and more.

On today’s Success Stories podcast, we’ll talk to Sean Kirkpatrick with Integritees in Lubbock Texas, and explore the reasons why he jumped into hybrid printing with both feet and hasn’t looked back since.

It’s going to be a fun and interesting conversation that you don’t want to miss!

Transcript

Marshall Atkinson 

Welcome to success stories brought to you by s&s activewear. I'm your host, Marshall Atkinson. And this is the podcast that focuses on what's working so you can have success too. One of the most fascinating developments in apparel print technology that has surfaced in the past few years has been the development of hybrid digital and screen printing technology. This means that screens are used for the underbase. And a digital print is printed over that. This gives the shop plenty of capabilities to explore and capitalize on their product offerings, workflow, and more. On today's success stories podcast, we'll talk to Sean Kirkpatrick with integrities in Lubbock, Texas, and explore the reasons why he jumped into hybrid printing with both feet and hasn't looked back since it's going to be a fun and interesting conversation that you don't want to miss. So welcome, Sean to the success stories

Sean Kirkpatrick 

podcast. Hey, Marshall, thanks for having me. It's good talking to you again.

Marshall Atkinson 

Yeah, and can't wait to dig into this. As you know, I'm a big fan of all things print technology. And the digital squeegee I think is really taking over how a lot of interesting jobs are handled how workflows are handling, and I can't wait to really dig into that. Yeah, and it's gonna be lots of fun. Hybrid is really taking over the industry, and a lot of people are just now seeing it. And for those of you just listening that don't know, Sean, you're buying your second digital squeegee right now. Have you already bought it? Is it installed? I mean, you got another one on the way? Yeah, it's getting installed in two months, right? This is like having another child.

Sean Kirkpatrick 

Yeah, now I'm ready for it. I could have used it three months ago. So I can't wait for it to get here.

Marshall Atkinson 

So before we get into exactly what all that is, let's talk about your origin story and where you were, and then your evolution of how you got into this amazing stuff. So where were you before you bought your digital squeegee and talk about what led you up to that decision to purchase it? Sure.

 Sean Kirkpatrick 

So my customer niche that I have are women's apparel brands, and I had a little shop from 2004 to 2014 and had a little six-color automatic and was doing just fine. Well, one of my women's brands kind of blew up and they were starting to get a lot bigger, and they were starting to demand higher color count prints. And at that point, I decided, hey, I need to get a little bigger myself. So I bought another building, I moved up to a 10 color gauntlet, and started to experiment with the whole simulated process way of printing, which was very different from three to four color spot color printing, so and after doing that, I quickly realized that there had to be an easier way.

 Marshall Atkinson 

Did you ever like to get a DTG printer as you go right from doing plastisol prints on our auto press to the digital squeegee? What was your step there?

Sean Kirkpatrick 

You know, it's kind of weird. I'm a really big tech person. Everything in my life revolves around tech. So when Scott Reznor introduced his little DTG machine way back when in 2006, or seven, I was one of the first people out to Phoenix to take the class and learn about it. And I just couldn't wrap my brain around the whole process of DTG in the bulk orders that I wanted my business to be printed, just with the speed and the efficiency and how it was. And so I never really looked into DTG after that, until 2018 when the M&R Digital squeegee was at one of the shows and I kind of looked at it asked about the price tag, and quickly moved on to the next booth. But from there on, my customer started demanding simulated processes more and more and more I was spending so much time separating and registering screens and spending so much time on press and just trying to get everything perfect that I quickly realized that the M&R Digital Squeegee was kind of something that was gonna allow me to get onto press really quick print these orders, make five-minute changes, get off and move to the next order.

Marshall Atkinson 

And you're printing. You print all types of shirts, not just cotton, you do all types of designs. And I think before we get into the capabilities of the press, which is a question coming up, why don't you just talk about how this thing works? Right? I think everybody can understand the digital printer. But what is a hybrid? What does that mean?

Sean Kirkpatrick 

So hybrid is basically taking both the traditional screens and the print heads with the DTG and marrying them together. We use screens to build the Bass, the white bass on a print. And then we use the digital squeegee to put the CMYK digital print on top of that.

Marshall Atkinson 

But you don't always have to use why you can use lead blocker black, you could use a different color. But that's essentially what we're doing is we're printing with the underbase screen, which allows you to print that digital image cheaper, right, because of traditional DTG. Print, most of the money is tied up in the underbase. White,

Sean Kirkpatrick 

well, cheaper, faster. Also, you don't have print heads with white in them. So you know, I've heard horror stories of these people have DTG machines. And if you don't run a couple of prints a day, then the heads clog up and everything and they turn into an expensive paperweight. So just all around using the traditional way of printing to get that base layer down, and then taking the technology of the digital heads to put the color down. That's the beauty of the hybrid,

Marshall Atkinson 

right. And it's for you The decision was all about, I've got a 10 color, and it's taken me 45 minutes or an hour to set it up and then three hours. And then I'm running 1000 shirts and 500 shirts and taking it down and doing it all over. So you're not really getting the volume out that you wanted to just spend the time registering. Did I understand that correctly?

Sean Kirkpatrick 

Yeah, not only the registering but then these ladies would want to see the print before you go to print. And so inevitably, there was a flower that needed to be a little bit pinker or a leaf that needs to be more green. And if you couldn't take the ink color and change at one Pantone and try to mix those colors to make that you were tearing the whole job down. And going back to this you know the starting point of setting up screens where the digital squeegee, it's a five-minute change in Photoshop where you pump the saturation up or change a tone, you push save, you save it to the DS and there you go. Okay,

Marshall Atkinson 

and have you calibrated the colors that you get with the print with what you see in Photoshop. So you're really matching.

 Sean Kirkpatrick 

Yeah, M&R and the caldera rip, they've done both a really good job at being able to mirror pretty much what you have on the screen to what you're going to see, you also want to have just a really nice bright white, and so your base and so different t-shirts, and especially when you're printing poly, you can actually have the benefit of putting a Glee blocker down before you print your white basis so that you can get those really bright prints that don't bleed on 100% poly shirts.

 Marshall Atkinson 

Okay, so what are the benefits of using the digital squeegee? And how do they outweigh just using a normal screen printing press? I just want to kind of just tie a bow around this whole idea.

 Sean Kirkpatrick 

Yeah, so I'm traditionally using I've got two presses right now. And so one of my press is strictly plastisol. We're running our spot color art. And I'm finding that my customers are loving to print quality. And the artists that work for them are loving the freedom to design t-shirts, designs that aren't limited to the boundaries of their boss saying, Hey, I only want to pay for six colors. So this is what you get to work with. So these customers of mine are really being able to be unleashed and develop artwork that their customers are loving. And that allows a digital squeegee to shine, just the benefits overall really quick setup, because for most 90% of my jobs, I'm setting up three screens to print full color. And so the timing to burn screens process, then get them on and registered three versus 10. That's incredible time-saving. But then on the back end, you're only cleaning three screens instead of 10. So you're not mixing inks, you're not doing anything like that. And then like I said, with the color changes, you can make color changes on the fly, you can make, you know if you're underbase you know the screen isn't registering up perfectly. And you've already spent a couple of minutes trying to get it while you just go into Photoshop. And guess what you print a little black ink on that white underbase. And instantly, you can go to production so quickly. You know it I really call it my cheat button.

 Marshall Atkinson 

Oh yeah. So you've got a little magic wand to solve. Yep. So, Sean, I've been to your shop. And one of the things that I really love, the fact is that you do a lot of stuff for women's brands. And so I remember this design series you did, where it was like a fake sewn applique look, and you had different patterns in each of the different shirts. But if I remember our conversation, you told me that you know, well, I can run these all at the same time. Because one has like an animal print one has polka dots or plaid or whatever it was. And what was really cool about that is you're getting all this stuff out at once. And you don't have to set anything else up. So kind of walk us through what that's all about.

 Sean Kirkpatrick 

So that's the power of variable data. Digital squeegee allows you to take the same set of screens and as long as the base doesn't change, you can put any design on top of that base that you want. So we've worked with schools and plopped in different teachers’ names on designs. We've worked with different fashion brands and you can plot From checkered pattern to a leopard pattern, and even change things up a lot and allows the customer to basically get 144 shirts with five different designs, and they're only paying for 144 quantity versus paying, you know, 24 shirts with a bunch of different setups in between. Okay,

 Marshall Atkinson 

So really the limit is up to your artist imagination,

 Sean Kirkpatrick 

it really is. And that's where a lot of people are really taking notice on the Digital Squeegee and allowing that to shine with high productivity DTG. It's got its place, it's got its one-off, and it's great for that right there. But when somebody is wanting 600-700 shirts, the digital squeegee is about the best thing that can come to that when you're wanting, you know, just a high-quality digital printing on shirts.

 Marshall Atkinson 

What is your average order size, Sean?

Sean Kirkpatrick 

My typical order is anywhere between 288 and 576. That's where most of them sit, you know, I do a couple of orders, I've just moved my minimums up to 144. Because I couldn't take the amount of work that was coming for all the shops that are you know, sending me contract work of 72 and 100, I was just getting inundated with all this work. And so I got to move my minimum to 144. And that kind of slowed it down a little bit. And then I'm doing shirts today, I just printed a 2000 shirt order over the last day and a half. And so M&R originally developed this technique and they thought really was just going to be a small spot in between DTG and traditional printing. So they were thinking anywhere from 100 to 500 shirts, that's the only place that the hybrid process was going to be really utilized. And now us as owners, we're figuring out and our customers are figuring out that they're loving the hybrid waterbased the feel of the shirt, they're loving that really pure 300 DPI digital print that you can see, and the price is just right to so

Marshall Atkinson 

So let's talk about the other side of the coin. Right. So let's talk about the downside of this system. So every technology, everything, there's always things that you can't do or stuff that kind of doesn't really work. Right. So what keeps you up at night? And what are you doing to mitigate those challenges?

 Sean Kirkpatrick 

Well, when owners call me in one talk about digital squeegee if they're thinking about bringing that into their shop, the first thing I tell them is that it's got a high price tag, you know, not everyone shops gonna have it, it takes up a big area, you've got to have a big press on telling people 18 you know, some people want to put it on 1416 you need to put it on 18 so you don't pigeonhole yourself into not being able to print that one job for NASCAR that's got three spot colors and glitter and a foil and a digital print on it. So people want to go small and say Oh, can I put it in 12 colors. Technically, I think you can run a digital squeegee on a 12 color press but you'll do it for six months and you'll wish you put it on something bigger just because you're running it on a WordPress right now. I'm running it on an 18 station striker my second one is actually going on a 16 color. And that's I can run two presses and anything that adds the needs those extra colors I can run on my striker and so my second digital squeegee can run the 90% of the work on the three spring proxy.

Marshall Atkinson 

Are you buying another new press for that? Yeah, I'm putting it on a 16 color Cobra Oh great. I love those new covers.

 Sean Kirkpatrick 

Yeah, I haven't even seen it yet. But that's what I was told I needed to I basically bought it sight unseen and the fun fact is the machines paid for already.

 Marshall Atkinson 

What do you mean is paid for?

Sean Kirkpatrick 

Already paid for I'm paid in cash. I thought when I ordered it that I was going to have to take a loan for it and just in the last three months and the work that's been coming in from the digital work. By the time it gets delivered in two months that press and digital squeegee will be paid for.

Marshall Atkinson 

So it's really that lucrative. 

Sean Kirkpatrick 

It really is. I mean, did people are willing to pay more for the hybrid printing than your simulated process jobs, they're not balking at the price. They're just looking for it. In fact, I had a broker call me two days ago. And he had a 250 piece job that he needed out pretty quick. And I couldn't get him on the schedule. But he said he called a few other DS shops, and a couple of them were two months out on new waters.

 Marshall Atkinson 

Right, I can believe it.

 Sean Kirkpatrick 

Yeah. And madmen are is selling these things, four or five a week right now. I mean, they're just blowing off the shelf. And this is crazy, I really think that by the end of this year, the markets going to kind of find out the power of the hybrid and the customers, once it gets to the end customer. And they start demanding that kind of quality and stuff, the shops that have them are going to be happy in the shops that have kind of waiting for the price to go down, which it never is going to go down, they're going to be scrambling to get into the technology.

 Marshall Atkinson 

Okay. And lastly, I kind of want to touch on the capabilities of the digital squeegee, right. And so you mentioned just a minute ago where you can add more to the print. So you can add glitter or you can add something else to it, that you can't really do with any other digital technology because they just don't have that as an option. So can you give us some examples of what you're doing that really makes sense for this technology?

 Sean Kirkpatrick 

Definitely. So the first thing that we use most of the time, is adding that extra screen in the traditional side of the hybrid process to print that blue blocker. We're getting a lot of fleece, I think hybrid digital printing on fleece is going to be really big this winter in the spring of next year. And so to get those bright colors popping off that fleece, we put that blue blocker down, and it looks great. Secondly, you know the CMI K, it can only hit a certain amount of gamut in the coloring. So these fluoresce and yellows pinks green, some of the stuff that actually true seems like a can't hit. If the customer needs it on their shirt, guess what you mix up that ink and you throw it on the screen in the process. And you can get that on that design. You can add several colors, you can add glitters, you can add M&R is developing their second version of the inline foiler that you can add with that, that I'm trying to develop some art workforces I can get my hands on it, it's really exciting to be able to have a technology that's going to unleash the next step of decorated apparel stuff that wasn't available. Before. Traditionally, it was all the special effects had to go in traditional printing, all digital printing had to go on DTG. Now with the hybrid process, the sky's the limit on it, basically, you know, people are doing stuff up in M&R with block and cracking and doing all that stuff plus digital printing. I mean, it's really going to, you know be how crazy does the customer want to get because it can be done.

Marshall Atkinson 

So I need to be done anything with printing like a puff on as part of the underbase. And you're trying to get a texture and then you get the digital print on top. So it really looks and feels like a seashell or thread or whatever. Because it all lines up that way.

Sean Kirkpatrick 

Yeah, one of the very first prints that I developed while I was waiting for my first digital squeegee to arrive was for one of my women's brands that was a country-western brand. And it was a piece of denim that I laser cut on my laser then frayed all the edges and scanned it in and then developed it to print on the digital squeegee. Well, with all of the different you know of denim, all the different, you know, threading and stuff on the scenes. I printed a puff based on the bottom of it. And it was really cool because you could actually feel that it looked absolutely like a piece of denim was sewn onto that T-shirt.

Marshall Atkinson 

Oh, that's fantastic. So last word here, Sean. So what's the one thing that you want everybody to know about this technology and why they should really be interested in it?

Sean Kirkpatrick 

People just really need to start becoming aware of where it's going to go. And it's going to take the decorator apparel market. If you don't have the space for one in your shop or don't have the funds or anything right now, then you definitely need to find who is in your area that has one and start that relationship with them so that you can have a good printer. When your customers come in and say hey, I saw this shirt. I want that you have someone to be able to do that for you. Right? Well,

Marshall Atkinson 

that's a great segue into if someone wants to learn more about what you do and how you can help them shine. How is the best way to get ahold of you?

Sean Kirkpatrick

So yeah, get on Facebook and you know, you can go to integrities on Facebook. I also I'm the admin of the digital squeegee Facebook page is called Digital Squeegee Printers. That's a really good place, I've opened it up to everybody where it was kind of just the industry and the owners now it's open to everybody. So if you're interested in just poking around, seeing some of the different designs that some of the shops are going at talking about the different inks that are being developed, it's a really good place to do that. And then you can kind of find somebody you know, you can kind of poke in and find out where they are and see if they're in your area and you can contact them but do you want to contact me? It's sean@integritees.com and I can definitely get you some pricing and see if I can help you.

Marshall Atkinson 

Can you spell Integritees? Because I always mess it up.

Sean Kirkpatrick 

I tell everyone is the word integrity. Drop the why at E-E-S.com.

Marshall Atkinson 

Okay, awesome. Well, thank you so much, Sean, for sharing your story of success today. I really appreciate you.

Sean Kirkpatrick

Thanks, Marshall.

Marshall Atkinson
 
Well, that's our show today. Thanks for listening. And don't forget to subscribe so you can stay up to date on the latest success stories episodes. Have any suggestions for future guests or topics, send them my way, at marshall@marshallatkinson.com. And we'll see you next time.