Westwood Music Sign Printing

Westwood Music is the local music store of the West LA area that has all of the small town local guitar shop feel with none of the corporate guitar shop feel. It might be a time warp back to the 1990s when you walk in, but there is no question that you get addressed by a REAL guitar player who knows about every single guitar hanging in that shop and loves what they do and isnt only there to sell sell sell.

WW Music needed some new signs for their store, so they called us to help them with out with getting better signage for their windows. We suggested printing on coroplast signs, since this corrugated plastic material is inexpensive, is durable and lasts thru years of sunlight (which is what their signs will be through sitting in a window for ages). We decided on 4 different signs, each with a different saying on one side and their logo on the other.

Not only is printing on coroplast difficult, as well as printing large format, but doing single sample signs is extremely time consuming and complex: all of which these signs required us to complete. We were able to cut these signs down from a larger plastic, then by using the specialized coroplast ink we could lay down a thick white print, and air dry them until they were ready for delivery. These signs now hang in the windows of Westwood with all their shiny, printed white glory! :)

Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros Merch

We were recently reunited with our old friends from New Community Management, the managers of many acts like Edward Sharpe, Bad Suns, The Wild Ones, Lia Ices, and many others. ESMZ have recently departed on a short leg tour, and they needed some much needed hoodies printed for that leg of their tour.

The hoodies were Alternative Apparel Eco Fleece hoodie. The hoodie itself is a poly/cotton blend hoody, so its not possible to print discharge inks onto the hoodie (as we would normally do with 100% cotton, for a client who wanted super soft inks on their garments) so we had to just use super soft plastisol inks in order to achieve this look. The coverage still had to be there (so you couldn't see the color of the garment thru they ink itself) but it still needed it to be soft.

DamnSon! Custom Printed Shipping Boxes

Most times, smaller apparel brands think that its much to expensive to have their own customized boxes printed up..."This is something that Nordstrom or Nike does, but not my small brand" they think. They are rashly mistaken.

The guys over at DamnSon! have a really great thing going. Based out of Salt Lake City, they run their music and art website promoting new acts with their keenly amiable phrase "Do What You Love". Print Renegades has been doing their apparel for a year or so now, and they really wanted to seem more professional in their presentation of sold merchandise that got shipped out to their clients. Enter custom shipping boxes.

These boxes were printed using a soft waterbased ink. Although the boxes are slightly large in size, the reason why its not very costly is because we are able to flat print them as a single color print, making it simple and easy for us to print, then when the box is folded up, each panel looks like it was separately printed. Professional and classy, yet inexpensive and affordable for those who think this isn't budget-friendly for them to do.

If you are a clothing brand, owner of a start up, artist, restaurant or you sell band merch online, making custom boxes will always add presentation value to your final product. Leave it to Print Renegades to up the value of your organization. Its our business to make your business OUR business!! :)

Fortress Social Club Custom Xmas Cards

Before Xmas, we had the pleasure to print custom Christmas Cards for the Fortress Social Club guys. This Los Angeles based ensemble of highly talented musicians is always on the cutting edge, and this year they really wanted to send out custom printed Xmas cards to all their fans. Shawn Harris threw out the idea last minute and we had to scramble to make it happen for them, but we love to come thru for like minded artistic individuals as ourselves, and here we did.

Because of the quick turnaround time, we decided to print these cards FOUR to a page to limit the number of paper cuts that were needed. Cutting paper perfectly (making sure the edges are even, etc) is time consuming and if we can just do 2 single cuts (center & center), that would speed things up, even if it meant printing a few more pages.

First we aligned up the film to the paper, to assure the print will be centered on the paper.

Then, taking the film and creating registration marks in order to get every single sheet lined up in exactly the same place is KEY. We usually use registration guides, except when the border is very close to the edge, which forces us to just use tape.

Next, Pantone ink mixing is the key to making any paper prints look amazing. 2 Pantone colors were given to us by FSC, which we custom mix with our Pantone Color Matching System (PMS) books.

Finally, were ready to start printing. Getting everything prepared before the ink gets printed into the mesh of the screen is key, since once you begin printing, the time clock begins and the ink starts immediately drying. We have to make sure we thought of everything before printing begins. On paper, each color must be printed separately, then dried and brought back for the other colors. Here, were printing the green color first:

After breaking down and cleaning the 1st screen, we align the 2nd screen, throw on the premixed RED ink, and print away!

Finally, the paper gets dried after a few hours...we then machine cut each sheet into 4 separate pieces, making 4 FINAL cards out of each printed sheet here.

MySpace Custom Halloween Masks

This last Halloween, we were asked by the people at MySpace Music to help with with a very customize project: Custom Printed and Cut Halloween Masks for one of their artists, Mellowhigh. Mellowhigh is a hip hop group composed of members of Odd Future, and they needed custom made masks for their record release party at the Henry Fonda Theater. What better people to take on such a task as Print Renegades??

Firstly we hand printed these masks using high quality waterbased Permaset inks on very durable 140# coverstock French Paper. The artwork was a little perspective askew, so was difficult to print, .

From there we made our own custom die (as you can see, its a little homemade) and hand punched out every one of these masks. From there, hot glue held on the elastic backing (staples are cheap and dangerous), and after making a few hundred of these, they turned out pretty amazingly. That just made us feel very confident about us taking on random odd jobs, and being able to make it better than we thought.

Gangi Vinyl Record Printing

Our friends with the band Gangi asked us to help them with yet another specialized project they had in mind. Since here at Print Renegades, we specialize in taking on random and unique projects, we were all in with helping them out with anything they had in mind.

They are releasing their new album and they are only making Vinyl records with this VERY limited edition release. Thing is that they only had enough songs for 3 sides of a double-record release, so they told the vinyl record manufacturer to keep the 4th side of one of the records completely blank (free of grooves).

From there, they asked us if we would be willing to screen print their logo onto the blank side of the record so that could ask as the front cover of the record. We were happy to help them out. We had to cut a larger opening into each of the cardboard sleeves, and then it was as simple as burning a high mesh screen, and then printing onto each of the 250 vinyl records.

For this, we used a very specialized Nazdar 9700 Series Ink that is specifically made for printing on plastic and vinyl. Although this ink dries with air, it is very volatile and is one of the only inks that we use that is somewhat toxic. Still, we make sure to take all precautions to protect ourselves and the systems around us.

The records turned out amazing, and the Gangi boys were very happy with their final product. It definitely correlated with the look and feel that they were going for with this release. You can purchase one of these vinyl records HERE.