FAIRFAX, Va.—SGIA releases its 2009 Industry in Review: Annual Report, the association’s official benchmarking tool for the specialty imaging community. The 2009 Industry in Review delivers information for all segments of the specialty imaging community, including projected and actual purchase plans, growth trends, sales-per-employee ratios and work in-house statistics, industry outlook and assessment within the U.S. economy, and future imaging trends within each imaging sector: graphic, garment and industrial.

FAIRFAX, Va.—SGIA member companies that have initiated SGIA’s 4-Step Sustainability Action Plan are encouraged to apply for the Sustainability Recognition Award. In its first year, the program’s primary goals are to recognize the efforts of specialty imaging companies that are on the sustainability pathway and encourage adoption of sustainable business practices by the SGIA membership.
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Not all companies pride themselves on being experts in their fields, or on keeping up with technological equipment advances and changes in technique. In fact, if more suppliers employed and trained their sales people to educate first and sell later, we would have fewer unhappy customers out there who think negatively about the supply process in general.

It all starts with the sales person. Is his goal the quick sale or the long-term relationship? Does she seek to meet her quota or to educate her customer as to what’s best to buy? It may surprise you but, more than any other single factor, education that grows into a solid foundation of knowledge is what keeps customers and repeat business. And this is nowhere more true than when it comes to purchasing an output device for digital transfers, or the transfer paper itself.

Beware the yes/yes answer

In this brave new digital world, are there still places for old standby analog processes? Yes, the production of heat-applied graphics is alive and well! Heat transfers, as we call them, are still a viable way to decorate both garments and other textile products.

So why would anyone in his or her right their right mind want to decorate with a legacy process such as iron-on heat transfers when they can complete an entire garment using an inkjet printer in mere minutes? The fact that we’re dealing with that buttonless, collarless, round neck, pull-over garment commonly called the “basic T” offers much of the answer to this question: