August VersaCAMM Training

The August class was our biggest one yet and was a huge success! We had a full room mixed with the usual mix of new and past students, all looking to advance their knowledge and learn a few tricks. We started off the first day with materials discussion and discussing ways to get better exposure into your market. After a short time talking about graphic formats and image types, we started into Versaworks and going over all of the different features and how to make them do more for your printing. This area always seems to have a lot of questions! We ran a few prints and showed how to change the settings to make the most of each print (say it with me - default, default, default!).

We next covered each one of the Imprintables Warehouse print and cut materials and talked about the different applications of each. There was much discussion on how to pick the right material for each application and the pros and cons of each. We were fortunate to have some new materials that they are releasing and each one of the students got an opportunity to try them out after lunch during out heat press session. During the session, each student had an opportunity to make a shirt with each one of the different materials. By having the same design on the shirt with each material side by side, you can really see the difference between them! There was a surprise for one of the students (Flora) as in her envelope was a card letting her know that she had won the first door prize! Imprintables Warehouse had supplied three door prizes to be given out at the class. First prize, won by Flora, was a free set of ink cartridges for the Versacamm. Second prize was a roll of quickprint material and was given to the student that traveled the farthest to come to the course. Stephanie had traveled out from California and was the happy recipient of the roll. The third prize went to the newest shop in business - John Morgan (Vapor Graphics). He was the lucky winner of a roll of wall graphic material. Everyone was surprised and pleased with the unexpected prizes - Thanks Imprintables!

We continued to go over the different materials and applications on the t-shirts until everyone had a chance to heat press everything. There were a few non printable materials for the class: cad cut Viper, Leather, and Graphite materials. The design on each is very unique and everyone agreed that there are some interesting applications that you could use them in. Graphite was my favorite as it seemed to have a carbon fiber look and caught light as it turns on the garment. Very cool!

The rest of the afternoon was spent on smaller projects including banners, coroplast signs, and contour cutting magnets. We discussed all of the different application procedures for putting vinyl onto different substrates and got to practice a few different techniques. By 5 pm I think everyone was a bit worn out but not ready to quit! We all headed over to Macaroni Grill for dinner and discussion of business in general. This is the part where I really learn a lot from everyone and get to hear some great stories of how each of my students got into business and what motivates them. Great food and great discussions!

The second day started with color management and how to work with RGB and CMYK graphics. We worked through how to properly export files and make sure that the color space is correct so versaworks can make the most of the image and get truer colors in the print. From there we worked on some of the more advanced settings in Versaworks and found different ways to make the graphics POP!

Next on the list was producing a canvas print and stretching it onto a gallery frame. I am lucky to have a good friend who is an excellent photographer that supplies us with pictures to frame in each class. We were able to successfully run the graphic and stretch it on the frame and I got to learn an new way to finish the corners from Valerie. I will have to practice it a bit but I think it will work out better. Thanks Valerie! (she also helped taking pictures). We spent most of the rest of the day going over the different projects ranging from inside window vinyl application, static cling material, "fathead" wall graphic material, multiple laminating techniques, and variable printing data. The afternoon was spent doing some questions and answers and going over any other projects that the students wanted to try. There were sample rolls of material for everyone from Imprintables Warehouse and Roland DGA. Everyone really made out good with all of the freebies they got to take home. As always, it was a great class and everyone learned a lot including me! I want to thank each of the students and of course our sponsors at Imprintables Warehouse for making this class a huge success!!