The House of Vans, which contains skateable features, art installations, and the general vibe in which Barrel Maker was founded on, was a perfect venue for this kind of workshop. It opened in 2017 and is situated in the Fulton Market District, it is the third of it’s kind to open. Hosting bands, workshops, skate classes and more.

Guests got to choose from a few rad designs and screen print them personally onto tees and tote bags with assistance from the Barrel Maker team. After they were printed they got to come up with a custom phrase starting with the prompt “Trust Me ________” and further personalize each garment with our super crazy cool handjet print guns! Then over to the Busy Beaver station do a similar process but in button format.

Putting people in touch with the actual process in which their clothes and wearable statement pieces are manufactured proved to be fun and engaging with lots of conversation sparking over the specific science behind printing all the way to it’s marketability and the paradox of whether one should print their own shirts and have full control over the process, or focus on marketing and letting Barrel Maker do what we do best. Showing people how we set up for Live Printing events and letting them print their own pieces gave participants a rare inside look at the process.

If you get a chance to come to an event where we are live printing, or you have an event that would benefit from hands on merch with no excess inventory, we have it all figured out. Please reach out.

The post “Trust me, I’m Merch Maker” event at House of Vans in Chicago first appeared on Barrel Maker.

The post How We Started Our Small Business: Barrel Maker Printing first appeared on Barrel Maker.

Outside of custom screen printing bulk t-shirt orders, our favorite part of our business is hosting live screen printing at events.

If you want to create a fun and memorable event for your clients, live printing is the way to go.

It’s something that we’ve been doing since early on and agencies and businesses just love it!

With our screen printing expertise and experience in working with large brands and events, no one else can deliver a live screen printing event like us. Over the years, we’ve created the ultimate Live Printing experience and made custom merchandise and giveaways an exciting and unique activity.

It doesn’t matter if you’re in the Chicago area or not. We have a mobile setup that is ready to make events all over the country way more fun!

How to Prepare for a Live Printing Event

Adding live printing to your event is easy. We’ve been doing this for years and have simplified the process into three easy steps.

Step 1: We create custom merchandise and prepare artwork for your event.

Step 2: We set up a 150 square foot print station in a convenient area at your event.

Step 3: We crank out hundreds of shirts, hoodies, koozies, tote bags, posters, and more for your guests to take home!

We have performed live screen printing at all types of events and in many different locations. From breweries to trade shows to music festivals to sporting events, we can handle it all and take the pressure of creating an unforgettable experience off your shoulders.

Check out the video above to see us in action at live screen printing event in a bar in Chicago.

Create a Fun Experience at Your Next Event with Live Printing

We love that at live events we are able to teach and show people how the screen print process works. The looks on people’s faces when they see screen printing for the first time and finally understand how shirts are decorated is priceless!

Hosting events isn’t easy. It’s a look of work for the organization putting everything together and for us when we play a small part.

But it’s this connection with the customer that makes it all worthwhile for us. And it’s something that no other activity at an event can replicate. It’s what makes live screen printing so memorable.

Most importantly, that experience will now be tied to your brand. We are giving your customers a tangible product that represents your brand and is tied to joy and excitement of seeing it made right in front of their eyes.

If you are looking for an idea to make your next event more fun, and I know you are, then fill out the contact form on our website to get things going!

The post How we host live screen printing events (With Video) first appeared on Barrel Maker.

It’s such a cool privilege to be able to be a part of such an iconic festival.  Our official merch booth was serving up classic old school Lolla designs printed on site for the psychedelic crowd!  We had a range of tye dye shirts and retro festival designs to choose from, but the really cool tie in was that Lollapalooza setup a “Rock and Recycle” booth.  Attendees were able to get a garbage back that they could fill with recyclables from around the park.  Once full they brought it back to the tent and got a token that they could bring to our printing booth and get a special edition shirt with the lineup on the back.

If you’ve hosted and event with merch before you know that people LOVE free swag.  Lollapalooza did an amazing job of leveraging that desire to help ensure that the park and it’s fans were taken care of.  It really was a win win!

The post Live Printing -Lollapolooza Rock and Recycle first appeared on Barrel Maker.

About once a year we get someone that didn’t look at their proof, and ended up unhappy with their order. Maybe their company’s name was misspelled, or the print was in the wrong location. Simple user errors, but easily sorted out and corrected if you look at the proof. Normally, people only make this mistake once, and we always deal with it in the most reasonable way we know how.

Let’s say you don’t want to make that mistake though.
Or maybe you’ve ordered custom printed merch before and you know a thing or two.
First, let’s talk about where you’d find a proof.

Once your order is paid for, you will receive an email that will look like this…

Click on the blue invoice button and it will take you to the invoice.
If you’ve already paid, you have already seen this page, but double check that the quantities and the shipping address are correct.
Now is a great time to ask questions or make any changes.
Once the proof is approved, it may be too late!

The post What should I look for when approving a proof? first appeared on Barrel Maker.

Our sustainability team meets every week to discuss our most detrimental environmental pitfalls and then collaborate on how we can flip those into our strengths. For example, up until recently our printers used baby wipes to clean the screens. The convenience and affordability made it hard to want to switch, but after doing some research and experimenting with reusable cloths, the printers actually prefer the effectiveness of the new material. Looking forward to transitioning all of our printers to these as we are finishing up experimenting with them. Imagine how many baby wipes we can now keep out of the landfills!

Another more long term goal we have is figuring out how to utilize our misprints in a more meaningful way. As of right now our printers use our misprints as testing fabrics and when there is no more space to print on them, they even use them to clean screens until they can no longer be used. At the end of the day, they do unfortunately still end up in the landfill. We are in the process of brainstorming how we can shred our prints into material that can be used for creating insulation, making mattresses for the homeless, or even dog beds for shelters.

Consider researching companies and look into their mission statement and operational sustainability before giving them your business. Making conscious environmental decisions is not something we have to do, it’s something we want to do.

The post We aren’t babies, no more wipes! first appeared on Barrel Maker.

Screen printers call it different things. Underbase, base, underlay, base layer, an extra layer, and I’m sure other things. It all stems from the same thing. Screen printing ink isn’t always 100% opaque, and it needs a layer underneath it to keep the prints vibrant. If there is white in the design, some may think that you can just use that white as the underbase, but in reality, the “base” white, and the top white (sometimes called “bump white”), need to be done at different points in the printing process.

First, there would be a layer of white underneath everything that is printed on the shirt. This is going to be the layer that the final print sits on, and none of this print will be visible if done right. It will be used like a primer, if you’ve ever painted model cars or painted a room, you may have used primer before. If your print looks uneven in the end, it may be your base layer.

Next up, yellow. This is going to be pretty straight forward. The only thing you want to look out for is the underbase peeking out where it shouldn’t. Sometimes people will “choke” the underbase or bring in the edges. The amount of choke is really going to depend on your screen tolerances.

The post All your underbase are belong to us. first appeared on Barrel Maker.

Doesn’t it feel like you could have paid for a day of recording or a tank of gas if you had some shirts to sell? That’s because it’s true.

Whether you are between shows or stuck woodshedding in your practice space, downtime is an awesome time to figure out your merch situation. An online store to sell your merch might be a great idea, especially if you don’t have the money to buy a bunch of merch, or you aren’t playing physical shows because of you know….the apocalypse. 

You choose your design and shirt type, we post your design, you promote the shit out of it and we will print and ship your merch to your fans directly! No risks, no guessing on shirt sizes, etc.
Once you are playing shows again, you can sell the merch you have on hand, or put an iPad on the merch table and let people pay with cards. We can ship them their shirt or tote bag in a few days!

Hit us up to discuss the deets. 

The post Band Merch: Managed, Printed and Fulfilled by Barrel Maker! first appeared on Barrel Maker.

Online stores were one of the major success stories for our business and our local community last year.

When faced with the pandemic, like other Chicago businesses, it wasn’t easy for us to figure out what we could do to help ourselves and what the future held. To be honest, it’s difficult to entirely remember the day-to-day of what we went through.

But one thing is for certain: the online shirt fundraisers that we hosted for local Chicago businesses were a huge success. The city of Chicago came out in a big way to support their local businesses and we raised $71,000 for the organizations that participated.

Here is a video with an explanation of our stores and interviews with small businesses that were part of the program.

Online t-shirt stores have been one of our core services for years. Our customers love it because there is no risk for them or upfront costs. We host the store, print the shirts, and fulfill all of the orders. What’s not to love about that?

COVID 19: Hurting us, our customers and our communities.  As small businesses we need to stand together!

TL;DR – We will set you up with a fundraising store online, selling shirts and other swag. You give the profit to your employees to help cover them during these times. We can offer gift certificates and you can include a gift too!

The post Chicago Small Business Fundraising Stores (COVID-19) first appeared on Barrel Maker.

Zach: So, what are you wearing right now? (;

Eric Good: I’m wearing an awesome shirt an old friend of mine printed. It’s the flier for the Necros and Real Enemy show at the Electric Banana here in Pittsburgh. The show took place in 1983. I love collecting HC/PUNK fliers as much as I love collecting t-shirts. This one is a best of both worlds kinda thing.

Zach: How many t-shirts do you think you currently have?

Eric: Oh man, tough to say. Definitely over 200. I honestly wear maybe 12 of them. Ha! I sold a ton of them over the years when I needed money. My wife wears the ones I no longer fit into. Ones from the 80s when I was in high school.

Discharge shirt from the 80’s, and Eric’s modern day reproduction of it.

Zach: Can you remember the first t-shirt that you were excited to wear?

Eric: When I was a kid in the early 80s I had an AC/DC shirt that I wore every day. It was my first band t-shirt. It was one of those iron on decals with the glitter in it. The kind you used to get at the mall or at head shops. Those shirts were amazing. You could get everything from bands to Harley Davidson logos to drug culture images and slogans. Total 70s and 80s rebellion culture.

Zach: T-shirts have been described as wearable billboards and have often been synonymous with activism and counterculture. Do you have a t-shirt that you’ve had in the past that best represents your current political views?

Eric: I agree. Yeah, I definitely had a few. Most of them were based in punk in some way. A band’s shirt with a bold political statement. One of my favorites was the classic Crass shirt that read “Jesus died for his own sins, not mine”. I had a DOA shirt that read “Something Better Change” and had the logos of a few dozen left wing, environmental, human rights groups all over it in a collage. There are tons more. You still see shirts everywhere with people’s opinions or beliefs printed on them. Unfortunately, a lot of them are adorned with bullshit I don’t agree with at all.

Zach: Do you have any shirts that you love that people may be surprised to see you in?

Eric: I’ve never worn a “v neck”, so I guys that’s my least favorite. I wear blank shirts here and there. They’re always black. A few years ago I was really into wearing blank black t-shirts. I wore them almost exclusively. I still have a few that are torn a bit, holes, rips under the armpits…. I guess those are my “slob” ones. They’re definitely comfortable sleeping, laying around the house shirts. I have some old punk shirts with the sleeves cut off. That was the “fashion” years ago in the punk scene. It definitely looks cool on skinny people. I’m not so skinny anymore so I only wear those ones around the house or when I’m doing yard work. Never wear them in public. I’m also a huge hockey fan so I have some Pittsburgh Penguins t-shirts I wear mostly during hockey season. Some people wouldn’t consider that punk or whatever. I don’t care what they think.

Zach: Why do you think t-shirts and screen printing are such an integral part of punk rock and music as a whole?

Eric: I think it’s a way to show people who you are and what you feel or believe in. It’s a way to show allegiance to your favorite bands. It’s a statement. It’s a way to identify yourself to other like minded people or to set yourself apart from people you despise. In the non punk world I guess it could serve similar purposes. Or it could simply be a souvenir from a great concert you attended. I think band t-shirts and sports t-shirts must be the most popular type of shirts. Makes sense to me when you think about how fanatical music fans and sports fans are.

Zach: Have you ever given any thought to the manufacturing process of blank tees and the impact on the environment, society, or individual workers?

Eric: Oh yeah. I remember when I was in bands we’d always try to get shirts printed by local DIY punk types. The “small guy”. We would try to get made in the USA union made shirts to avoid sweatshop manufactured shirts. I remember the unbleached pure cotton type of shirts being popular. I’ll admit I didn’t like the way those looked though. That off white , tannish color was never appealing to me even though they more eco friendly.

Zach: Do you think transparency in the manufacturing process is more important than we currently emphasize? Why?

Eric: I love the fact that companies are more transparent these days. I think a client or customer should be well aware of how their product is being manufactured. Especially if it coincides with ethics the customer/client believes in or wants to project. I’d like to a lot more companies become transparent beyond just screen printing companies.

The post Eric Good has more t-shirts than you! first appeared on Barrel Maker.