Zazzle removing Serenity products??
POSTED BY: Tiger
UPDATED: Saturday, September 18, 2004 17:53
VIEWED: 21523
PAGE 3 of 6
Quote:
Originally posted by Hell's Kitten:
So now I have a question for all y'all who've gotten shirts and whatnot from Cafe Press or Zazzle: HOW is the image printed? I mean... is it an iron-on transfer or silk-screened or what?? I can't find any information on either website about this, and I wasn't about to give them good money for something I can make myself. Any information you could give me would be considered a kindness.
Cheery bye.
The process is called dye sublimation...it's basically a fancy iron-on transfer, but can also be printed directly on the surface of the item, depending on the printer type. It takes dye and actually "embeds" dye particles into the substrate through the application of heat. In the CP and Zazzle techniques, it requires the use of special transfer paper (NOT the stuff you buy at your local office house, but still easily obtainable), as well as special dye-based inks for the printer. The process bonds the dye with the fabric (in the case of shirts), so that it stays color-fast and fairly fade-resistant if treated with care (wash inside out, cold temps, not hot dryer).
In the olden days when I started in design, the printers were huge, expensive and clunky, and involved basically a wax crayon that contained the dyes, that vaporized quickly when heat was applied in the printer, binding the particles quickly and permanently to the paper. We used to use these for client proofs because the color was very brilliant and fade proof. Just don't get them too close to a heat source...
http://www.dyetrans.com is a great resource to see all the kinds of items that you can transfer onto. The big advantage of DyeSub vs. screen printing is the subtle colors, gradations, and photographic quality that you can get. Screen printing will be more durable, but it's a little complicated to get it right, and you're somewhat limited as to what can be reproduced well. Solid areas of color are best. Good companies (like Full Bore Graphics here in town, who does some of the Super Bowl and Stanley Cup shirts) can reproduce several-color designs (like 7 or 8 colors), but it's not something I'd recommend to the casual printer.
Downside of DyeSub is that you really can only print well on light colored materials, otherwise you get color shifts or it's flat out unreadable. You can print an area of white under where you want the design, but then you've got a big white spot, so no subtle "transparent" designs. Oh, yeah, DyeSub can't reproduce white in a design...it will be clear, so the shirt color will show through unless you screen print an area of white behind it as I mentioned. There's talk of new processes that can do white, but I've not seen them yet. I'm going to browse through some sites to see what's new.
I'm considering investing in a DyeSub system of my own in the next couple of years to provide more items to my customers than what CP or Zazzle can provide..not sure if it's worth it or I should spend my time trying to make screen-printable designs and order in bulk. We'll see...
"We gotta go to that crappy town where I'M a hero..."
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Thanks, ShinyHappyKlin, for the info. The Captain Dummy Talk version, as I understand it, is that this isn't something the average bear can do at home.
gojiro
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by gojiro:
Thanks, ShinyHappyKlin, for the info. The Captain Dummy Talk version, as I understand it, is that this isn't something the average bear can do at home.
gojiro
Technically, yes, you can do it at home, if you get a set of the dyesub inks for your home printer, and the transfer paper for them, and if you have access to a decent heat press....welllll, somebody out there is probably doing that at home!
....it's just not me!"We gotta go to that crappy town where I'M a hero..."
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Waaaaaaahhh! I go home for the weekend and come back to this!!! No fair, especially when I was one the people who urged Gojiro to make T-shirts! Jeez, I feel bad about that. But I feel even worse because I didn't get a chance to get my T-shirts!! 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All of me is beautiful and valuable, even the ugly, stupid, and disgusting parts.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I can't believe that the Networks and the other PTB are missing such a damn easy way to make money!
All the hard work is being done by you guys in terms of coming up with the designs, and the actual labor of producing the products is being done by companies like Zazzle.
Why don't they just licence it all? For example, they could have an agreement with Zazzle where they are paid, say 10% of any items that are sold.
They could set forth certain restrictions to prevent items in poor taste (if they wanted to) and they wouldnt even need to look at each individual image.
Money for nothing, no outlay from them, and buckets of free publicity as we are all walking around advertising their movies etc.
They are surely missing a big opportunity here :)
Like fireflyfans.net?
Help keep the site running.. Why not donate?
see links on homepage
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Cuz they wouldn't have any control over any of it, and that's a very big thing.
Originally posted by britchick:
Why don't they just licence it all? For example, they could have an agreement with Zazzle where they are paid, say 10% of any items that are sold.
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I also imagine Zazzle is being proactive in taking down anything that looks remotely copyrighted, just to prevent a lawsuit.
Their site is down today for "routine maintenance." I wonder if my stuff will be there when it comes back up.
gojiro
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
But that's why I think they are missing a big new trick, HK.
The whole point is they have can't control people making these images. We've seen it here. The PC tools are sophisticated, people can produce really great stuff relatively easily (not meaning to take away from the effort it takes you guys, I just mean that a few years ago only professionals could have produced this quality of stuff).
So what they do control is being able to stop is people making money from their efforts, and they do this because the PTB would be "missing out" on getting some money from "their" intellectual property.
However, if they only looked at this as an "opportunity" to be exploited rather than a "problem" to be stamped out, everyone could benefit.
And it could be SOOOOO simple. The money could roll in, they would find it easier to stamp out people who don't go through "official" channels; they could select the printing companies (the Zazzles of this world) to ensure quality of goods.... It would be a virtuous circle.
Like fireflyfans.net?
Help keep the site running.. Why not donate?
see links on homepage
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Along the lines of 'same but different', PayPal and I had a fight recently as they've suddenly decided to control content as well.
I sell adult toys to help support my Breast Cancer website. The majority of my clients are themselves cancer patients and need all manner of things to give them some sort of 'normalcy' in their sex lives.
(Trust me ... chemo and sex are a very difficult mix for most folks).
So ... you can go to my site but you can't buy anything online thanks to this decision. That's DESPITE the fact that you can't 'accidently' stumble onto my site and that there's no way for a PayPal client to find it by accident, either.
Still, they've decided that this 'apparently' makes the shopping experience 'safer' for PayPal customers.
The ONLY people this hurts are the small independent vendors like me. Actual "porn" sites can easily afford their own SSL, etc. systems and don't rely on 3-rd party vendors.
Grrr. AGGGGHHHH! 
PayPal!
Cheers,
Annik
... my sister's a ship. We had a complicated childhood.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Well, Gojiro, I was able to order a T-shirt of the Fillion Teaser just now, (in stone green, and I wanted to add text to the back, but the damn site was all screwy and wouldn't let me...maybe that's why they were down yesterday) so we'll see if they fill the order. Yay! I'm happy I got a chance to order!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All of me is beautiful and valuable, even the ugly, stupid, and disgusting parts.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME