Saturday, July 12, 2014

Child Hoodies Back to School Sale

 Manx Media Custom Screen Printing is offering discount pricing on the Gildan youth hooded sweatshirt. The Gildan Youth Hooded sweatshirt comes in 22 colors!

This "Back to School" sale runs until July 19th. Get the Gildan youth hoodie with a one color print for only $11.50 per printed shirt. Minimum order 24 pieces.

There is a one time set up charge of $40 for film and screen. Complete design service is available if needed.

Special pricing also available on Ts and Polo shirts in youth sizes until July 19.

Email Steve Lafler or call 503-213-3671 to place an order.

Thursday, July 10, 2014

New Oaxaca Tshirt

Here's the new Oaxaca Tshirt to go with my new Oaxaca comic book...
Available at this link.

Sort of a Dia De Muertos theme.


Monday, June 09, 2014

Spontaneous Entrepreneurship


Do you have what it takes to work for yourself? How do you start your own business? We all have to start somewhere. Here's how I started in the T-Shirt printing biz, some years ago. I can tell this story 'cause I believe the statute of limitations has expired!
Here I am, hawking T-Shirts in 1979.
I was fifteen minutes from reporting to my first day of work as a minimum wage dishwasher early one evening in June, 1979. It was my first summer living out of my mom and dad’s house. Things had started well enough—my intention was to sell wholesale T-Shirt printing services, pumping out the jobs myself on a freelance basis. The first week, I sold a gross of shirts to a local pub, making a gross of dollars. Considering that rent for my summer sublet was all of $60.00 per month, I felt flush! But I hit the wall after that. Despite hanging flyers all over Amherst and environs (including on the enormous University of Massachusetts campus), the fact was that my client base (dorms, student clubs and the like) had departed for the summer and no one was buying.

Having spent most of my last $20.00 on a book that caught my eye (I’d convinced myself that this was practical through some alchemical equation), I was ready to throw in the towel and signed on for a dishwasher job on campus. UMass hosted an odd assortment of conventions, seminars and crackpot camps in an attempt to pay the bills over the slow summer season. I was to be washing dishes in the campus dining commons for a group of several hundred Transcendental Meditation practitioners from the west coast who were convening a seminar on levitation. I did mention it was the Seventies, right? 

I was filled with despair at the bleak prospect of washing dishes. I’d done my time as a dishwasher at a fast food steak house in high school where I was required to wear a polyester cowboy outfit. I had no desire to return to the low rent glory of the dishwashing pit.
At fifteen minutes to the 7:00 pm diswashing shift, a bolt of lightning struck. Of an instant, a fully formed scam literally sprang out of absolutely nowhere and announced itself to me. The underlying message was clear: YOU ARE NOT TO REPORT TO THE DISHWASHING JOB! 
I’d recalled that an acquaintance, Sue, who worked in the campus center building, had mentioned to me that she had a list of groups who were holding events in the concourse of the campus center that summer. Sue had actually produced a list of the events for me. She assured me, if I was to set up and sell T-Shirts at these events, she would look the other way; not charge me for the space. It seemed risky and a bit scurrilous, and I’d forgotten about it until fourteen minutes to dishwashing. 

It was a Thursday evening, and that very weekend, the New England Camera Club was hosting their annual convention in the campus center. I determined that I would grace the show with their official (bootleg) t-shirt. The first problem to conquer was lack of capital. I knew where I could score some blank shirts for a dollar a pop, which I could print and mark up to the princely sum of four bucks, but since I was down to $3.00 on hand, it didn’t seem much of a plan. If I had a hundred bucks, I could buy a hundred shirts and turn it into four hundred over the course of the weekend, enough to finance a month of summer living! 


Did I mention it was the Seventies? Very fortunate, as it turns out you could hitchhike anywhere in New England back then within the course of a few hours, a day tops. I elected my mom as my financier and was on the road by five minutes to seven with my thumb up. As my folks lived about 70 miles away, I figured I’d get there just before the summer night settled in. I got a ride out of Amherst towards the western burbs of Boston just about the time my shift supervisor probably started wondering where the hell I was. 

Okay, so mom definitely raised an eyebrow at the plan, but recognized my desperation and fronted the bucks. By early Friday afternoon, I was back in Amherst at my drawing board putting together a cute little cartoon logo featuring a guy who had a camera for a head. Somehow I managed to rustle up the blank shirts and get them all printed by eleven that evening. 

The next day, I set up bright and early on the campus concourse with a table that Sue scrounged up for me (she was slightly horrified that I’d actually taken her up on her offer!). By noon I’d made Mom’s stake back, and was up to $250.00 by the end of the first day.
By just past noon on Sunday, I hit about $430.00 (having managed to get the shirts for .89, I had a few over 100 pieces). At that point, an obnoxious fifteen year old (who had been flirting with me earlier) returned. With an attitude of scorn and derision, she asked if these were the official New England Camera Club T-Shirts? I said that indeed they were! 


A pale and disheveled fifty year old sad sack with caved in shoulders stepped forward and introduced himself as the president of said club. I handed him the four remaining shirts, and barked “Here’s your cut!”. I was breaking down the table over his protests and briskly walking it back to the storage bay that Sue had plucked it from the day before. Table tucked away, I smiled at the Pres. and thanked him profusely. Then I turned on my heel and ran close to four minute mile pace back to my flat, a remorseless 22 year old flush with success!
 
Now I admit that I’d pulled a fast one on that guy, but I am hardly the only college kid to ever make a quick bundle of cash bootlegging a few T’s. The moral of the story, such as it is, goes like this: If you’ve got the BoHo self employment stuff, you know it, because you have an anecdote or two a lot like this. Normal, sensible, thoughtful people do not take risks like this, they do not engage in such brazen behavior. They want “security”! You and me, we’ll take the risk any day… for those who prefer the living death of the secure government job and pension, they can have it!

Friday, June 06, 2014

Manx Media Custom Screen Printing

We Print
T-Shirts and Apparel
Top Quality at Great Prices
Full Art and Design Service Available.

Steve Lafler and David Perkin are seasoned pros in apparel decorating. We've created shirts for dozens of clients including Google, Sony Music, The Residents, Cosmic Monkey Comics, Haight Ashbury T Shirts and Margaret Cho. We'd love to set you up with the shirts you need at a great price! Call today at 503-213-3671 or email Steve Lafler for a quote.


Steve with the Workhorse 6 color screen printing press. 


Robots Rock T Shirt for Sarah's Science. Four color process with added pull out spot color, art by Steve Lafler.

Custom Printed T Shirts - Today's Sale Items

Bella + Canvas Triblend T Shirt sale. Call or email for pricing on these stylish, soft Ts.

Steve Lafler 503-213-3671



  • 3.4 oz., 50% polyester, 25% combed and ringspun cotton, 25% rayon
  • 40 singles

Thursday, June 05, 2014

Steve Lafler T-Shirt Designs


Summer's here and you need new T-Shirts! Here's a few of my own designs. Drop by my shirt shop at Redbubble and get yourself set up with these fun designs on a variety of shirt styles.

Steve Lafler






Wednesday, June 04, 2014

Best Women's T: Bella Scoop Neck

For the combination of style, fit, and value, you can't beat the #B1003 Bella + Canvas Ladies' Baby Rib Short-Sleeve Scoop Neck T-Shirt.


Manx Media is offering a price of $6.95 per shirt for orders of 100 shirts or more with a 1 color print. Set up of $40.00 for film positive and screen is extra. XXL are $8.25.

Call or email Steve Lafler 503-213-3671 

Specs for the B#1003:
  • 5.8 oz., 100% combed and ringspun cotton
  • 30 singles
  • 1x1 rib
  • Sideseamed
  • Slim fit

Tuesday, June 03, 2014

T-Shirt Printing: Sale Prices and 2014 Price List

Today I'm posting my both the Manx Media 2014 Custom T-Shirt Printing price list, and the current sale prices on Gildan Cotton T-Shirts.

The sale price on the Gildan style #500 cotton T-Shirt is 3.95 per shirt including a one color print on orders of 100 or more; with screen and film factored in, the price for 100 pieces is a total of $435.00 (before shipping) based on your print ready art file. The sale price is good until June 6.


Call Steve Lafler for a quote at 503-213-3671 or send an email.

Friday, May 30, 2014

The Win-Win Deal


On occasion,  I write pieces about entrepreneurship, especially as it pertains to the custom screen printing business.

Within the scope of private business, capitalism, or what have you, it’s not only possible, but indeed necessary to construct deals in which both parties gain, in order to be truly successful.

Integrity, Honesty and Frankness

Business is nothing if not a series of relationships to the bohemian sole proprietor. In my central Screen Print business, I have roughly three dozen active accounts (a.k.a. customers). My ability to earn an income is dependent on successful navigation of those relationships. It may sound altruistic to pursue the win-win deal, but it’s really pragmatic. Simply, a happy client will recommend you to others. An unhappy one will spread the word that you suck. Take it from a guy who has had both experiences!
Integrity may mean that I suggest an order of 50 shirts to someone who initially says they want 500. My experience is that you shouldn’t “over order” on a design that doesn’t have a track record, or is not presold to some group, or is for some major concert, etc. If one of my clients gets stuck with 450 shirts they have no use for, it may occur to them to blame me! If they buy 50 and sell 45, I have a new on-going client.
As for honesty, no need to tell your life store, but do keep your client informed of any information they need to know. Try to make quotes that cover all contingencies so there will be no surprise charges. If, for example, the client hands me an art file that I need to do two hours of work on, I call them right up and say, “This will cost another $130.00 in art time to produce the job.” Then, they have the chance to back out before I start the job. If they become unhappy with the new information, at least you know before the job started!
In case of a dispute, if you are straightforward and keep your client informed, and track all order information in writing, you will be able to create a chronology of the facts of the deal to support how the job unfolded. This can be a valuable tool in discussion and settlement of disputes. A chronology of facts is the only tool you would ever need in a court of law, in the unfortunate event that it comes to that (happily, this is rare indeed).
Manx Media logo
(Manx cat with no tail)

Pursuit of Quality

I’ve been in the T-Shirt printing game since I was an undergraduate in the late seventies (who knew that an easy way to earn beer and date money would turn into a “career”?).
Not a week goes by where I don’t learn something new about screen printing garments. It is a very simple technology, photographically based, that works swell for printing on fabric. But there is endless and infinite finesse (and technology) that can be brought to bear to make it work better.
As a kid, I got into the business as a low baller, (price wise) which was appropriate. As I improved my craft, it occurred to me that is was more satisfying to pursue the highest quality available, and that there is always a market for quality.
I had run a low tech water based ink shop for years, still the best approach for the low overhead start-up shop, and the perfect dorm room option. As the demand for multicolor printing on dark shirts increased, I began to farm out jobs to a colleague, Dan O’Neill Custom Screen Printing. Most of what I have learned about quality printing comes from Dan, who is incapable of doing a bad job. I subsequently expanded my shop to run these jobs in house. As of this writing, I've sold my press equipment to my former printer, David Perkin, who has gone into business for himself. All my printing is now handled by these two capable guys.
In terms of supporting the win-win deal, quality trumps everything. Everybody loves a job well done.

Copyright 2014, Steve Lafler, all rights reserved.

Email Steve for a Quote

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Custom T-Shirt Super Prices

Hey, right now Manx Media is offering special deals on orders of 100 pieces of Gildan 100% cotton T-Shirts.The Gildan 500 Heavy weight 5.3 ounce cotton T comes in 63 colors.

Until June 6, we are offering 100 shirts with a one color print for a total of $435.00. This price includes set up for one color printing. Shipping vial UPS is extra.

The price for printing on 100 white shirts is $385.00.

For two color printing add $75.00, for three color printing add $140.00, for 4 color printing add $200.00, for 5 color printing add $260.00, for 6 color printing add $320.00.

Email Steve Lafler or call 503-213-3671 to place your order.


Prices based on customer supplied, print ready graphic file. Terms are 50% to place order, 50% to deliver.

Friday, April 11, 2014

Custom T-Shirt Printing Price List Spring 2014

Here is the Manx Media wholesale custom screen printing price list for Spring 2014.


Please call or email with any questions. Prices are based on a minimum order of 50 shirt, they are unit prices including a one color print.

-->
Minimum 50 shirts.
Includes 1/c print, add .40 2/C, .65 3/C, .90 4/C, 1.10 5/C, 2/C .40 3/C .65 4/C .90 5/C 1.10 6/C 1.35

PRICES INCLUDE PRINTING in one color ink.


Add amount indicated above for multi-color printing.




Gildan 5000
$4.95






cotton T


Quantity Discounts:




Gildan 2000
$5.50
100 shirts, less .35 per shirt. 200 shirts, less.55 per shirt. 300 shirts, less .65




Hwt cotton T


2X, 3X, 4X shirts slightly more expensive.




Gildan 5000B
$4.75






child cotton T








Gildan 2000B
$5.20
WHITE TSHIRT slightly less – prices indicated are for color shirts.




Child T Hwt








Gildan 2400
$8.75






LongsleeveT


SALE ITEMS: When our supplier offers us special pricing, we pass it on to you.




Gildan 5400
$7.75
Check at time of quote for special offers.




LonsleeMdWt








Gildan Hoodie
$17.95
Prices based on print-ready jpeg, Photoshop or Illustrator files.




Adult 185








Gildan Hoodie
$16.95
Art & design services available




Child 185B








Am Ap 2001
$6.90






cotton T








AmAp BB301
$7.30






50/50women








AmApBB401
$7.50






50/50 Men








Am Ap 4400
$8.20






cotton rib T




























AmAm 4305
$6.75






ScoopNeckT








AmAp 4321
$6.75






CapSleeveT








AmAp 4311
$6.50






Spagetti T









These are just a few of the items we offer. Let me know if you want a quote on a shirt that you don't see here and I'll find it for you.

Prices are based on a minimum order of 50 shirts and include a one color print. There is a one time set up fee of $40.00 (film and screen) for each ink color in your design. 

Printing in lovely St. Johns, Portland OR. Prices FOB Portland OR, UPS extra.

Steve Lafler, Manx Media
503-213-3671

Email Steve for a Quote







































































































Monday, February 10, 2014

Looking For a Portland, Oregon T Shirt Screen Printer?

We are Manx Media, located in St. Johns. David pulls the prints and Steve handles the biz. We've been in the shirt printing biz since the 80s.

Quality is our focus. We do high quality work for our clients--local businesses like Cosmic Monkey Comics, but we've also done work for entertainers like Margaret Cho and the Residents, and corporations like Sony Music Distribution.

We'll do a great job putting the shirts you need in your hands. That being said, our prices are pretty darn good too. Give us a try!

Full color T-Shirt for Sarah's Science, art by Steve

Whether you need a price on getting 100 T-shirts printed, 25 Hoodies or 2,000 Black T-Shirts with a white print by Friday night, we're your guys. Of course we handle all major brands and styles, including Gildan, Bella, American Apparel and Hanes.

Call for a quote today on your next custom screen printing job!

Steve Lafler
503-213-3671
Email Steve