I\u2019ve got an XL Tom Tom, a five mega pixel camera and an iPod. I put a sleek black Samsung next to them on the desk and engage Bluetooth \u2014 that should impress them. The door opens and three young men who I suspect live with their mothers, read horror novels and have a shampoo allergy shuffle silently in; they are here to talk to me about spiders, of the Google variety. As they begin mumbling into their bum fluff about string queries while staring at their Clarks, I find that all I can hear is the server\u2019s incessant dirge, punctuated by the occasional ping pong of an email as it falls onto my virtual doormat… and in my coat pocket I feel the presence, of a Blackberry.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all progress of course, but when I\u2019ve gone a bit heavy on the cr\u00e9\u00a8me de menthe I\u2019m occasionally visited by my old friend Ben Kenobi who reminds me, \u2018You\u2019re more machine than man now\u2019, and when I wake at 4am to see the kettle spinning around on the record deck I think, it\u2019s inevitable isn\u2019t it, you can\u2019t hide from the future? Face Space, My Book and Grebo\u2026 complete strangers email me and ask if they can be my friend. I\u2019m English and polite and so naturally I say \u2018Yes of course old chap, I mean dude, lovely to hear from you\u2019. They then reply asking who the hell I am and telling me to clear off their friends section. I want to write back and tell them I\u2019d rather drop my undercarriage into a jar of African killer bees than be part of their social network but I can\u2019t, because I\u2019m English, and polite, and so I apologise.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m told it\u2019s inevitable that I must blog every move of my fascinating life \u2014 I noticed some clown on a T-shirt site recently describing a particularly interesting cloud formation he\u2019d just seen. In the same way is it inevitable I wonder, that we must turn to digital print?<\/p>\n
The advantages are obvious I guess. No messy inks mean no plastisol on the mother in law\u2019s new Axminster \u2014 no bad thing when your mother in law\u2019s got a pierced nipple and has lost all her front teeth to pork scratchings (no offence Doreen). And as for digital print quality, you can pick out the hairs on a gnat\u2019s todger in glorious Technicolor without a single screen, so no carry on with the old four colour process inks, no setup costs, BINGO! And onto black garments I\u2019m told.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also easy to operate \u2014 apparently even embroiderers can work the kit. This is a huge advantage in the modern labour market. As we all know the ability to read, write, spell and do basic maths are now optional extras for most school leavers\u2026 and yet strangely they all emerge with 50 GCSE\u2019s and a bucket of A levels; presumably some of these are in knuckle scraping and gurning. Off the subject slightly \u2014 Me? Never! But if you\u2019re ever feeling a touch under par just advertise for a fictional job vacancy \u2014 I had a candidate recently inform me that he was suitable for screen printing because in a previous job at the abattoir, he\u2019d been in charge of burning off pig hair. Fairly sure if I\u2018d been doing that for seven years I\u2019d keep it quiet.<\/p>\n
So you don\u2019t need to train a young Paduan screen printer for five years before they\u2019re ready to take the trials\u2026 which not all will survive \u2014 you just put young Trevor in front of the digital printer and tell him to shout you if it catches fire. And the digi-bonuses continue \u2014 the equipment doesn\u2019t take up much space; it doesn\u2019t fill the room with smoke; I guess it\u2019s eco friendly (?); you\u2019re not standing up spinning a carousel all day until your feet look like a pair of Quavers; and the blow dried salesman in comedy socks informs me that production times are just getting faster and faster. It\u2019s a \u2018no brainer\u2019 they say \u2014 put that squeegee down and call your first child Epson!<\/p>\n
But you know what Mr Stephenson, head of the Luddite Print Company is going to say don\u2019t you? And it\u2019s predictable isn\u2019t it, because I still listen to Muddy Waters, Sonny Terry and blokes whose first names are Blind or Howlin\u2019 (what were their mothers thinking?) I\u2019m going to take the stairs and not the elevator, use the map and not the sat nav, I might even write someone a letter one day soon, in ink, and I\u2019m not going digital just yet. There\u2019s a reason, maybe not a great reason, but here\u2019s the thing.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t digital prints pretty much all look the same? Now I know we go to some stupid lengths at our place to try and do different stuff. This culminated recently in a bunch of screen printers standing in a field shooting sweatshirts with 12 bore shotguns \u2014 well how else to you get an irregular distress in a thick fleece? For any loons interested enough to know we reckon the optimum distance is 12 feet \u2014 any closer looks like a post office raid gone wrong. Do not attempt without a licence and permission of the land owner though; although consenting, the farmer in our case viewed us with the kind of suspicion I imagine he usually reserves for gay communists.<\/p>\n
This excursion was not helped a few days later by the lads at work catching me distressing individual water based prints with sand paper \u2014 but this plot loss aside, go digital and I\u2019ve got no expanding bases, no discharge, no suede effect, no high builds, no sprinkled glitters, and what about pressure distressed water based? You know, where you just feel that wood in the palm of your hand, press a bit harder and then ooooh just ease off there a touch tiger and lift the screen and yes, oh yes indeed ladies and gentlemen, that print looks a hundred years old \u2014 in short when it comes to digital, it\u2019s printing Jim, but not as we know it.
\nCheers,
\nPaul<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It might be a new year, but that doesn\u2019t mean Paul Stephenson is going all \u2018futuristic\u2019 on us as he wades into the digital debate. I\u2019ve got an XL Tom Tom, a five mega pixel camera and an iPod. I put a sleek black Samsung next to them on the desk and engage Bluetooth \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1595,1596,619,622,1239,1242,1597,1398],"class_list":["post-2161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles-misc","tag-digital-printing","tag-digital-t-shirt-printing","tag-garment-embroidery","tag-garment-printing","tag-screen-print","tag-screen-printing","tag-screen-printing-london","tag-t-shirt-printing"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n