News From Inside the Tie Lab
Custom Ties for WTRMLN WTR, Queen Bey, and Women Who Rock. March 9, 2017 14:20
In honor of International Women's Day, as we continue to talk about women who totally rock (it’s not a hard thing to do, really!) we’d like to take a moment to talk about one of the most fun custom projects we’ve had the opportunity to be involved with recently - not only because it is retroreflective printing ink on fuchsia, I mean how could that in itself NOT be fun?!?! But it gets even better! Cool materials are great, but cool materials and hot company! Awww yeah.
We love doing custom work and love even more working with other creative, women-owned and funded companies. A few months back we collaborated with WTRMLN WTR to design and hand-print some pretty snazzy gifts to give out to their team and friends. Extra bonus? We love the product too (SRSLY, it’s delicious). We adore what they stand for in its ingredients and production, and the ladies involved are pretty damn amazing.
A much needed and refreshing change in the often wasteful food and beverage market, Founder and Creative Director Jody Levy explains that their company finds a home for what the industry referred to as “discarded melons” – watermelons to be discarded simply because there was a blemish on an otherwise delicious melon. (I think we should all recognize as a society that a few blemishes don't in any way take away from the real deal...but that's a whole other topic!)
"It’s all part of WTRMLN WTR’s mission to seed change toward healthier lifestyles and more sustainable food harvesting, one bottle at a time. The juice is pressed from ugly watermelon “seconds” that many supermarkets and shoppers pass over from cosmetic imperfections like sunburned skin or dented, misshapen rinds."
We love working with amazing people, and we bet they sure do too! And extra extra congrats to them announcing their new, expanded product line today and having one seriously rad new business partner - Beyoncé!
“Congratulations to my partners at WTRMLN WTR,” said Company investor Beyoncé. “I applaud the innovative female leaders at WTRMLN WTR, who inspire us with their creativity and their true commitment to elevating our community and culture.”
BLNDS, aka the Hydration Squad All-Stars! The $3.99 “BLNDS” are available exclusively at Whole Foods for the next six months, with sales benefiting the Whole Planet Foundation, which gives micro-loans to female small business owners and entrepreneurs around the world. The BLNDS will expand to stores including Whole Foods, Kroger, Costco, Safeway, Wegman’s, Sprouts and Amazon.
Um...how cool is that!!?! Rock on WTRMLN WTR and Queen Bey!!!!
BLNDS, aka the Hydration Squad All-Stars! The $3.99 “BLNDS” are available exclusively at Whole Foods for the next six months, with sales benefiting the Whole Planet Foundation, which gives micro-loans to female small business owners and entrepreneurs around the world. The BLNDS will expand to stores including Whole Foods, Kroger, Costco, Safeway, Wegman’s, Sprouts and Amazon.
Um...how cool is that!!?! Rock on WTRMLN WTR and Queen Bey!!!!
In keeping with WTRMLN WTR's vibrant aesthetics and super hot fuchsia branding, we were able to match our narrow fuchsia tie to their existing delicious fuchsia hue and add in some extra bling with our retroreflective ink. Above on the left shows the print in natural light, and on the right, with a camera flash.
Let's get flashy!
What the heck is retroreflective ink? You know the fancy pants reflective prints that usually live on your jogging shoes and safety gear? Now you can rock that shine on a tie! The grey print on most fabrics, even super bright ones is very subtle until exposed to a direct bright light, led flashlight or camera flash. Be stealth... and then flashy!
Most logo ties are a snoozer. Need some hot swag for your work or organization? Check us out, we can make it happen.
An Easy Way to Make Your Wedding Even More Personal! May 19, 2016 12:11
We know how important it is to have the utmost in personal touches for your wedding. But don't you hate how crazy expensive that process usually is, and how you need to buy like a billion pieces at once to even make it happen? Well guess what? Now you can get your custom initials, name, wedding date or any text you choose on just ONE tie! One! No cuckoo set-up fees either. Need 50?...100? No problem, we can do that too.
We're now offering custom initial ties (not just one letter, but any combination at once) in the super popular handwritten style "Pretty Script" font. We have capital letters, lowercase letters, numbers and symbols. These make a perfect keepsake for groomsmen, wedding parties and any time you need to keep it personal. These are custom printed just for you, your big day, or that special guy that needs his name (or yours) on his tie.
As this is a totally new printing process, we're here to answer a few questions and guide you with the best way to select color.
So how much are they? One tie is just $39. We can also add your wedding date or message of your choosing on the reverse tail for just $10 more. That reverse necktie tail is a great place to get really creative. Add groomsmens' individual names, location coordinates of your ceremony-- the sky's the limit! (Actually, 140 characters is your limit, think tweet, short and sweet!)
How can you possibly custom print one tie for that price? Each is custom printed to order with our patent-pending dye-based process. This is not in any way a lesser-quality process than our regular screen-printed line, just a different process that lends itself better to smaller batches, and we enjoy passing that time-savings on to you.
What the heck is dye-sublimation? We use high-quality, non-toxic, "sublimation" printing ink. Sublimation printing is new -- the dye is ultra soft, completely permanent and merges right into the fabric! You don't feel it on the fabric at all like screen printed ink. There's no thick, raised, or textured feel. Just like all of our neckties, bow ties, pocket squares and scarves, each of our sublimation-printed ties is hand made right in our Detroit Michigan studio.
What colors can I pick? Many! Choose an elegant and sophisticated tone-on-tone print using a darker print on a lighter tie fabric, or a select a black print on a greater range of light to medium tie colors.
That sounds a little vague, so let's get you some help on choosing the right colors!
What are some proven color examples that will work? Below we've created some samples to show you how our printing inks behave on different color tie fabrics. We picked one set of initials and one wedding date to keep things easy to understand. It's important for you to know that our photos are not digital mockups, they're the real thing! Each is a real fabric and printing ink example. We printed on a range of red, yellow, green, blue and neutral tone color families in order to show you what works well with our new process. Short answer? Any dark color on light in the same color family works great!
So...um, what are color families? Think blue on blue, for example! A navy blue print on a lighter blue will work great.
Shown above is a navy blue print on our periwinkle standard width necktie. Just say "navy blue print" when you check out and we'll select a good one that works well with the lighter blue tie fabric you select. This is a lovely example of blue on blue, but don't forget to check out our sky blue tie fabric, another that will take the print very well. If you have a Pantone number you'd like us to get close to for the print, we can do that too, it really helps us to understand exactly what you're after.
Green on green is another great choice of a print in the same color family. Just make sure it is a dark green on a light green, as a light green on dark green won't work. Have a green themed wedding? Need to match that elusive David's Bridal "dusty shale"? Shown above is a hunter green print on our sea foam standard width necktie.
Yellow on yellow is also a winner. In case you haven't heard, yellow as a wedding accent color is probably one of the most-trending-est colors on planet earth right now (yes, that's a word because we say so). Here we've applied a harvest gold print to a butter yellow tie. See a pattern here? A darker golden yellow on light yellow is in the same color family, therefore it prints wonderfully!
Now here's where we add a little footnote about what can be slightly problematic. Above you see the same, butter yellow necktie fabric, but with a smokey blue-grey Pantone chip next to it. See how the print result looks different than the Pantone chip, it shows a more taupe than blue grey print? That is the limitation of the new dye process. That butter yellow tie fabric color mixes with the printed dye. The yellow fabric shines through the blue-grey print, making the print look a little more brown instead, as blue-grey is NOT in the same color family as yellow. This is why we caution against mixing color families. If you're having a yellow and grey wedding and want a grey print on a yellow tie, please be advised it is going to be a warm, brownish grey, not a true blue grey.
Ok, now back to more successful color family examples! Pink on pink is another tone-on-tone winner. Love a strong pink? So do we! This is a dark raspberry print on our dark salmon standard width tie. We can print well on a whole range of pink ties, from the palest peach and ballet pink to the most intense fuchsia.
We said intense! You're not relegated to pastels and light color tie fabrics only - we wouldn't do that to you. Black printing ink works best on these darker and more vibrant shades. Shown here is black on raspberry. You can even do black on charcoal grey. About the only colors we can't do this process on is black on navy blue or black on black, sadly it just won't show up.
Of course black looks great on everything, and it looks especially good on its lighter friend, silver. This color combination is always a wedding favorite for the most elegant ceremonies, and for guys that just get totally freaked out about adding color to their wardrobe.
Classic neutrals are always a safe bet. They're timeless and you're guaranteed to never have that what the heck was I thinking moment in 20 years looking back at your wedding photos. Shown here is tan on platinum. There's oodles of ways to make great color tone-on-tone palettes in neutral shades. Platinum, cream, champagne, they all work great!
And who doesn't love champagne...or chocolate? Here you see them both together. This is another neutral tone-on-tone combo that is sure to please both mom and dad, and appease lovers of that vintage, rustic-chic look that is so on-trend right now. Just make sure to select a darker brown on champagne, not the other way around, as that won't work with this process.
Examples of what will *not* work: Any light-color letter on dark or medium fabric; like pink on red. Nope! Yellow on brown. Nope! White on purple. Nope! Or any different color, not in the same family like orange on blue. Nope! We'll spare you the art school color theory, just trust us. Again, this is a translucent dye-based process (think like how watercolor painting works). The color of the tie fabric influences the color of the printed dye itself.
Any questions? Please, please, ask! We apologize for the positively epic amount of words. Pictures are worth a thousand - use our photos as your guide!
• Remember •
Dark dye on light fabric? YES! ✔
Light dye on dark fabric? NO! ✖
Black dye on light to pretty dark fabric? YES! ✔
You've learned the rules and have learned to love them...
