TS Designs is looking for a fulltime operations coordinator

Responsibilities:

• Providing support to salespeople and customers for active orders including quoting orders, advising scheduled deliveries, and process limitations
• Acting as liaison between sales and operations to ensure art, print, and dye schedules are in sync and address customer deadlines
• Occasional order entry & paperwork organization
• Occasional weekend travel to trade shows to support sales efforts

Requirements:

• A four-year degree
• Knowledge of and experience with general PC applications including Microsoft Office 2007
• Type 40+ wpm
• Good organizational skills and attention to detail
• Ability to multi-task

Send résumé to Eric Henry at eric@tsdesigns.com

Below are some comparisons of standard plastisol ink contents compared to TSD water-based ink contents. As an obligatory disclaimer, this information is to the best of my knowledge based on what I researched in early 2009.

It’s important to know that not all water-based inks are environmentally friendly and not all plastisol inks are terribly detrimental to the environment. If you’re not printing with TSD, make sure to investigate and verify the composition of your printer’s inks in order to make an enlightened decision. Make sure to get full ink content disclosure from your printer!

There are four basic components of a screenprinting ink:

Pigment – the color. Pigments can either be powders or liquids. Pigments, as opposed to dyes, are not water-soluble.

• Plastisol and some water-based inks often contain heavy metals in order to make them heavier and more opaque or to increase the light- and wash-fastness of the print. Certain Azo-based pigments contain structures that are suspected to cause health problems.
• TSD pigments contain only trace heavy metals by design (less than 100ppm, the same as drinking water), but maintain good light- and wash-fastness because of the printing methods used.

Carrier – the vessel for delivering the pigment to the shirt

• Plastisol inks use a solvent, typically petroleum-based with high VOCs (volatile organic compounds), as a carrier to dissolve the pigment and the binder.
• Our inks use potable water as a carrier, which suspends the pigment in the mixture rather than dissolving it.

Thickener – keeps the ink from bleeding out onto the shirt after being printed

• Plastisol inks typically use a synthetic, petroleum-based plastic polymer as a thickener. The most common thickener for plastisol inks is PVC (poly vinyl chloride), which contains phthalates and other chemical additives that can leech out over time.
• TSD inks use a cellulose-based thickener; in other words, made from wood. It is completely biodegradable.

Binder – binds the pigment to the fiber

• PVC is the standard binder for plastisol inks. The thickener and binder are often similar PVC chemistries.
• TSD inks use a synthetic acrylic binder. While it is not rapidly biodegradable, it contains no vinyl structures or functional groups (e.g. chlorine or fluorine), and is entirely inert (thus non-toxic). Elmer’s Glue® is another example of an acrylic binder, one that is chemically almost identical to our binder.

TS Designs is looking for a fulltime press loader.

Responsibilities:
• Setting up a press for production
• Loading t-shirts onto screenprinting press pallets
• Coordinating a 3-person press team

Requirements:
• Can handle repeated rapid movement
• Good hand-eye coordination
• Detail-oriented

Preferred, but not required:
• Prior screenprinting experience

If interested, contact Shannon Clark at 336.229.6426 x242 or shannon@tsdesigns.com.

Envision Smart Green Episode 1 Featurette: TS Designs from Envision Smart Green on Vimeo

A Thriving “Triple Bottom Line” Enterprise: T.S. Designs

John Ivanko profiles TSD in his Feb. 25th article for Ecopreneurist. Check the full story out here.

Today TS Designs officially announced Cotton of the Carolinas, an innovative new program that will grow, make, and sell t-shirts in the Carolinas, during the first CotC Stakeholder Meeting.

The meeting was a great success, thanks to the stakeholders, press, and interested parties involved.

Check out the following links for more info:
Press Release
White Paper

The Burlington Times News covers the production of t-shirts for the historical presidential inauguration of Barack Obama.  See the full article here.
NOTE: There is a misquote in the article.  Shannon Clark, our production manager, is quoted as saying “This is a lot faster than normal. Thirty days is pushing it for us.”  Hist actual words [...]

A lot of talk has been swimming around the internet lately about the new standards set forth in the US Consumer Product Safety Commission’s new children’s product legislation, the CPSIA.
If you’re not familiar with the new legislation, it sets a maximum threshold of lead (100 ppm) and certain phthalates (0.1% of the phthalates DEHP, DBP, [...]

by Eric Henry and Eric Michel
I recently celebrated the fifth anniversary of running my 2000 Volkswagen TDI on locally-made biodiesel. That’s over 100,000 miles on a fuel that was made from waste vegetable oil, collected from restaurants right here in Alamance County. People frequently ask me why I drive a foreign-made car when [...]

Mebtec is a computer and electronics collection and dismantling center located in Mebane, NC. Their facility handles the dismantling and sorting of donated computers and other electronics into their base components (e.g. plastic casings, circuit boards, metal pieces, etc.), then ships those components off to various companies, many located in NC, to be recycled. [...]