Meet A Family Member

Each month we bring you inside our warehouse to introduce you to a member of our Family.

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CRAIG DICKEY

Content Manager

Let’s start by making this awkward: The guy you’re meeting today is the same guy who writes all these blog posts. Which means, I just wrote in the third person, and like you, I feel dirty about it. To avoid any further awkwardness, I’m going to go ahead and talk to you like a (semi) normal person…

What do you do at Family Industries?

I’m the newest member of the Family, and my job is to… well, do exactly this. I’m in charge of all our digital content and social media. So any time people click the “like” button on Instagram, read these blog entries, or re-tweet @familyIndLA on Twitter, I get to live another day… Okay, things aren’t that serious, but I do get super giddy!

What piece of clothing that you own could you not live without?

I am constantly running around, and after playing basketball my whole life, my feet have seen better days. If I didn’t have my Timberland lineman boots my feet would be in shambles.

At the moment, what are your top three songs?

1. “Love It If We Made It” - The 1975

2. “Slow Burn” - Kacey Musgraves

3. “Sunday Driver” - The Raconteurs

THE OVER-SHARE QUESTIONNAIRE

AND FINALLY,

DESCRIBE YOURSELF IN ONE GIF:

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Screen Printed Posters

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poster printing dept.

A behind the scenes look at the FAMILY INDUSTRIES poster printing department

We love screen printing posters. The poster printing process has a lot of similarities to printing apparel, but it takes a steadier hand, more attention to detail, and experience to the get final product just right! We always get a ton of questions about how the poster printing process works and why it's different than printing apparel. Our in-house team consists of two master printers, Joe and Able. Combined they have over 40 years of printing experience. 

Our poster printing department tends to work with artists who need fine art print runs, and bands who need highly detailed gig posters. This past week, we worked with Mollie Tuggle, an experienced designer and artist who designed an amazing gig poster for the legend, Roky Erickson.  

Below we take you through our in-house process of printing a poster from start to finish!

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Step 1. check artwork, print films, and mix inks

We first check out the final artwork that is approved & received. It should have layers showing the different colors that will be printed on the blank stock paper.  Next, we print films that are used to burn the images into the screens. Screens for poster printing are much larger than used for apparel prints so we can print super-sized designs! Our crew matches the waterbased inks by eye, and we do several swatch tests to ensure a great match.

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2. Start printing

Screens are burned, inks are mixed, and we're ready to roll. The decision of which layers to print first is determined by the design. Making sure parts of the artwork called "traps" are in proper placement helps us in working out the best order of colors. Our printing press has a vacuum that keeps the paper in-place during all these changes. If there are multiple layers, we pause after each is completed to let the ink dry before moving to the next one! 

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3. next round of color

Posters are printed in layers.  Each color needs to properly dry before the next color of ink is applied to the paper. Posters are definitely a "craft" process and need careful planning in order to achieve the best possible look. 

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4. prepare for delivery

After all the printing is wrapped, we let the custom printed posters air dry. Waterbased ink doesn't need to go through a heated dryer, but rather air dries as the moisture dissipates from the stock. After that, it's time to get the prints into a box for pickup or shipping!


New York Comic Con

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SYFY LIVE SCREEN PRINTING

Cosplay, Costumes, & Custom Printing!

It's always a blast to LIVE PRINT custom apparel and swag at any Comic Con across the world (San Diego, New York, LA, Mexico City) because the attendees and fans are so fun to work with!

We had the pleasure to print 6000 custom SYFY shirts for the cosplay wearing folk of the New York City Comic Con at the Javits Center in early October. We were located on the mezzanine level of the "Crystal Palace" and were directly in front of the main entrance to the convention floor.  Guests lined up from dusk until dawn to grab a free t-shirt with the newly rebranded SyFy logo!