Fresh Faces and the Introduction of Custom Art!

Jesse MacKenzie
June 30th, 2016

June 2016 Newsletter

 

Fresh Faces

Fresh faces at Trust

The last couple months have seen a pretty sizeable personnel shift at Trust. We talked last month about Travis moving into the office to become our third Customer Rep. Along with that we have decided to fill out our third press team and add a brand new position. That means we have five brand new employees in our Trust family.

Annelyse Smith

Annelyse Smith — Quality Control Specialist
We were very familiar with Annelyse’s work at Juice Junkies before she joined our team as a quality control specialist. We figured if we were going to see her so often we might as well start paying her, and we have been rewarded with a fantastic addition to the Trust family.

Hannah Collins

Hannah Collins — Quality Control Specialist
Hannah’s bright, smiling face joins our production team after several recommendations from people inside and outside of Trust. Her energy and attitude have allowed her to quickly fit into our team, and we think she might have psychic powers.

Stephane

Stephane — Printer
Stephane joins our print team with a great mindset and a hard working attitude. Stephane certainly has traveled the furthest to find his way to Trust; growing up in France and, until very recently, living in Europe. His unique perspective and experiences are great assets to the team. Also his accent is wonderful.

Jenna Riehl

Jenna Riehl — Printer
Jenna comes to us with previous art and print experience. This has allowed her to catch on to our processes incredibly quickly. She is a diligent worker and her last name is pronounced “real” which is awesome.

Jake Bloom

Jake Bloom — Illustrator
Jake has spent a great deal of time around Trust for someone who was not an employee, even doing a couple projects for us on a contract basis. Jake is a designer/illustrator with a knack for turning ideas into beautiful designs and a penchant for musical outbursts, and we are very excited for him to join us in an official capacity.

Illustrator is a brand new position for us. Let’s talk about what it means!

 

Custom Art

Custom Art

So, you may be asking why we need an illustrator, and I am so excited to answer you. As of the sending of this newsletter, Trust is officially offering our services for all of your Custom Art needs. We have had countless conversations over the years with customers who need art or need better art. In the past we have taken on simple design tasks in an informal fashion, but now we are ready to work with you developing your concept into a beautiful, custom piece of art.

Why is this Important?

At the most basic level, the goal of Trust is to print someone’s favorite shirt. We think this is vital. Apparel is a unique and special advertising tool that becomes more and more valuable the more it’s worn. A generic shirt for an event may be worn once or twice, but if that becomes someone’s favorite shirt, it could be worn 50 times or more. The idea of adding 50x the value to each shirt we print is what drives us.

Think about your favorite t-shirt, what makes it your favorite? You may like that it’s soft or that it fits well, but most likely a major factor is the design. We think we do a great job of the first two, but we want to help in the 3rd category as well.

Why Now?

If this is so important, why haven’t we always offered it? Simply put, we decided to prioritize production. We’ve spent our 12 years establishing the quality of our printing and service and building our customer base. Focusing on being great at a small number of things has been extremely beneficial for us. We are very careful about taking on new responsibilities.

So what changed? Trust is in a great spot with our team, our workload, and our workspace. We are now in a position for the right person to step in and manage Custom Art successfully. Jake Bloom is that person. He is an amazing illustrator and designer, knocking out beautiful creations fast enough to make everyone jealous. His skillset combines drawing ability with a designer’s eye for art that communicates its message clearly and effectively.

How Does it Work?

The details of our process are laid out on our website. It begins with a form for you to fill out giving us all of the information we need to understand your vision. We really want to stress putting thought and time into this first step. Most of our problems in creating custom art have been caused by poorly communicated vision and expectations. The more effort and information you put into the Custom Art Form, the less time we will have to spend later making changes.

After the form is filled out, we will send you sketches and a quote showing you our vision for your design and giving you an expectation of how long it will take to create. This first round of sketching is totally free and non-committal. If you’re unsure about your art or if you’re searching for “cheap” designs elsewhere, give us a shot. We think we can wow you with our ideas.

If you give us comments or changes and approve the sketches and quote, we will create the art. We will send you the final design for final approval and a beautiful, crisp, high quality art file will be waiting on our server for you whenever your order is placed.

What can We Do?

We can brag about Jake all we want, but the proof is in the pudding. Below are a few of the designs he has already created for us at Trust, with more of his illustration work here.

Custom Art Portfolio

Print of the Month

Print of the Month

Olive the Beauty Lounge — Texas State

6 Color Plastisol on Canvas 3413 – Charcoal Black

In honor of our brand new Custom Art services, our print of the month is a Jake Bloom original. Olive the Beauty Lounge came to us with a great concept, some inspirational images, and the fun phrases they wanted in the art. Jake did the rest and after a couple rounds of edits, we had a beautiful, colorful design.

Print of the Month

We love vector art at Trust. Our presses, screens, and high resolution output from our iJet allow us to consistently print with incredible detail. We will always be proud of our halftones and our photorealistic prints, but most of our favorite shirts are beautifully designed, simple, vector designs. Jake and our Custom Art department are prepared to handle designs in any style with any concept, if you have any questions about what we can do email us, call us, or submit an art request.

Jesse is our Creative Director. He splits his time between the Art Department and Creative duties, looking to innovate and push the company in both areas (unless he overslept.)

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