DTG update

Well we have had the Viper direct to garment printer for about six months now. The first machine they sent us was a nightmare. It just kept breaking down. The company that supplied it were always willing to send an engineer out to try and fix it, but this meant that we were letting customers down, with late delivery.

Eventually we felt enough was enough and we demanded that the supplier took the machine back. They in turn asked for one more chance, which included exchanging our original machine for a new machine.

There was a lot of soul searching before we agreed to their offer. The new machine turned up in July and has been more or less trouble free ever since. Its great and it gives us far more flexibility for or t-shirt printing.

DTG Viper

Well the new DTG "print on black t-shirt" printer has finally arrived. It actually turned up last week but we are having a few problems getting it working.

We have had two visits so far and the staff that have been trying to get things sorted out have been very pleasant and informative.

I think that one of the big learning curves will be removing images from their backgrounds. This involves the use of Photo Shop and can get quite technical.

Google Page Rank

Sometimes life can actually be quite fair! I have given my website a spring clean to freshen it up. This has involved me working on all aspects of the site over the last month or so.

Two benefits have come out of this effort:

1, An improvement in my search phrase ranking for expressions like t-shirt printing.

2, The PR ranking of the website has increased from PR1 to PR2.

I thought the new look would help my search phrases, but had not even considered the website PR ranking

Printwear & Promotion exhibition

I spent the day at the Printwear & Promotion exhibition on Monday. The reason for going was because all the main manufacturers of Direct to Garment printers would be there, displaying their latest products.

Splashlogo as a company has been using the Brother "white only" machine, which has proved to be a very reliable piece of equipment. The only problem being the inability to print on dark coloured garments.

When we studied the market place about two years ago, the problems with "print on black" DTG printers were compounded by the white ink sedimentation. This caused the printhead to clog, with the resultant poor print quality.

Technology has moved on during the last couple of years so it was time to have another look. There is a new generation of inks being used, plus the anti clogging devices are much more sophisticated.

The new "print on black" Brother is due out this Autumn, but apart from the rumoured price tag of 50,000 euros, it is too long to wait. So having had a good look round and watched varoius demonstrations the machine that stood out from the rest was the Viper from Yes Ltd

Old T-shirts

If you ever need to borrow the shirt off someone's back, just hope it's not a favorite. Turns out, most people feel a sense of attachment to their tees - and that cuts across all ages and demographic groups. In fact, four out of five people still hold on to at least one sentimental old shirt - and, more likely, two or three.
That's the principal finding of a new nationwide survey from a custom t-shirt company conducted in early February. The company wanted to know: what happens to all the t-shirts created for sports leagues, fraternity parties, church camps, fundraising events and countless other groups and activities? In association with Chicago market researcher Synovate, asked 1,000 online consumers, "What favourite, sentimental old t-shirts do you still own?"
Roughly 79 percent of the respondents still have an old shirt, averaging slightly more than 2.5 shirts per person; 788 people reported 2,124 shirts total among the various categories. Shirts from a holiday led the way by far across all demographic groups. While we tend to hang on to shirts from a concert, a favorite pro or college sports team, and a charity run/walk, we're also fond of shirts from a business or employer.

Here's a rundown of the categories:
48 percent: A shirt picked up on holiday
30 percent: From a business or employer
27 percent: From a concert
27 percent: From a favorite professional or college sports team
23 percent: From a run/walk to raise money for a favorite charity
17 percent: From participating on a sports team
12 percent: From a church event

Among the survey's major findings:
Youth is sentimental ... Those most likely to hang on to old t-shirts are respondents ages 18 to 24. Just 7 percent said they haven't kept a shirt, compared with 21 percent of the overall population. They're far more likely than their older counterparts to keep a shirt from a concert (46.5 percent of 18-24, versus 27 percent of the overall population). It's also the group most likely to have a shirt from an election or political party (10 percent, versus 6 percent overall).
But so are their elders. Those in the oldest age group are dedicated to their cotton keepsakes, as well: more than two-thirds (70 percent) of respondents age 65+ still hold onto a favourite tee.
The armchair beats the field. People are more likely to keep shirts they acquired as a sports spectator than as a sports participant. From the total sample, 27 percent keep a shirt from their favourite pro or uni sports team, while just 17 percent have a shirt from a team they were on.
Who wears the shirt? Men were more likely than women to have a shirt from a pro or uni sports team (30 percent, versus 24 percent, respectively). But the genders differed by only 3.5 percent when it comes to having a shirt from a sports team they were on (19 percent of men, and 15.5 percent of women).
It's not just a job ... The second most popular shirts overall were from businesses or employers, held by 30 percent of all respondents. Go to grad school, get a t-shirt. Post-grads are especially proud of their alma mater - it was their second choice by a mere 3 percentage points (43 percent versus 46 percent for holiday shirts). In fact, they were the only demographic group to seriously challenge the vacation shirt preference. Post-grads were also twice as likely as those with a bachelor's degree to have a shirt from a University.
Brands for young music buffs. Concert shirts are most popular with the younger set: the youngest three age groups beat the average (46.5 percent of those 18-24, 30.5 of those 25-34, and 34 percent of those 35-44, compared with 27 percent of the overall population).
Recalling that church gathering. Shirts from a church event were most popular among women (15 percent, versus 8 percent of men), respondents from the South (16 percent, versus 7 percent of those from the Northeast), and non-whites (17 percent, versus 11 percent of whites).

Pamela Anderson

I see in the Tuesday's edition of Metro.co.uk that they have an article about Pamela Anderson wearing a white t-shirt while out shopping in Malibu. It just goes to show that it doesn't matter how rich or famous you are, there is still always a place in the wardrobe for a good old white t-shirt.

I think it would look even better is she had come to http://www.splashlogo.co.uk/ for her t-shirt printing and had professionally decorated!

Search Engine Optimization

I have long followed the SEO groups in Googles forums. Today I have actually written my own entry.

I have managed to get the .com to another website that I own, called www.adlogo.co.uk. The problem is that I have to be careful how I attach it to the main website or I might create a duplicate site. Why is this a problem you might ask? Well if Google thinks it is two identical sites and the new website is plagiarizing the old website, it will down grade you!

So I am now waiting to see if they respond to my post, plus it will be interesting to hear their solution.