Frequently Asked Questions

Here’s some stuff people ask me now and then, if you have any questions not covered here, please click HERE to visit our contact page!

General Questions

Where are you located?

Bee’s Knees Print Studio is locally owned and operated in Santa Fe, New Mexico. You can find us on Google maps if you’d like to stop by and say hello!

What services do you offer?

Currently, Bee’s Knees Print Studio is available for screen printing, embroidery, sticker printing and graphic design services on a limited basis.

I’d love to help with your design project, but if it’s not attached to a printing project I may not be able to dedicate the time you’d need to its completion. There are so many amazing artists out there that would be stoked to work with you, and I’ve worked with many of them myself. If you need a recommendation for an artist or designer, drop me a line and I’ll do my best to set you up with someone rad.

How long have you been printing?

I began screen printing in early 2016.

Initially I wanted to print cool car club t-shirts for @tunerpunk, a local car club I founded with some buddies. The idea was to print and sell cool stuff to help fund our race car build, which is still ongoing.

Since my first hand-made plywood press that was bolted to the kitchen counter, I’ve printed hundreds of shirts for local non-profits for free, as well as countless other cool things for awesome people along the way, including clients across the US and in a handful of other countries as well!

What is screen printing, and how did you learn?

Screen printing is awesome, is what!

In basic terms, screen printing is a method of decorating a substrate. The screen acts as a stencil, and is coated with a photo-sensitive emulsion, exposed to UV light with a film blocker, and once the screen is washed out you’ve got a highly accurate stencil used to pass ink through.

I’m an entirely self-taught printer, so I spent countless hours trying and failing, reading, watching videos, asking questions, and taking chances. I picked up a ton of information from some really awesome printers out there, and I’d be happy to share their info if you’d like to learn yourself!

If you’d like to check out some of my favorite print-related YouTube channels, here’s a list.
Catspit Productions
Monument Limited
Ryonet
Kevin Hackett
Mikey Designs

Payments and Billing

How does your payment process work?

This part is super easy!
Once we’ve identified most of the details in your order, I’ll send an invoice to your email. Once your invoice has been paid in full, we’ll send you a mcok-up for approval, and once it’s approved production will start on your order immediately. Our invoicing software can accept all major credit cards, and provisions for payment methods like PayPal or Venmo can be made no problem.
Bee’s Knees Print Studio generally does not accept check payments from new clients, but exceptions can be made depending on the circumstances so if you need to pay by check, please let us know!

Do you offer any kind of return policy?

This one is a bit tricky.
Because you’re purchasing custom items, we do not offer returns on items created for clients. Not to fear, though! There are some other processes in place to ensure that you get exactly what you wanted. Each order starts with a quote, mock-up, and invoice. All three of these things need to be approved before your order enters production, so it’s not possible for anything to go off the rails along the way. This means that by the time you receive your order, you’ll know exactly what it’ll look like.

In the extremely unlikely event that items in your order leave our shop damaged, offset, or misprinted, Bee’s Knees Print Studio will either entirely refund or replace those items free of charge.

Do you charge any fees that I won’t see until I receive my invoice?

Nope!
There are no set-up, artwork prep, film production, or any other tricky fees involved here.
If you require graphic design from scratch, that service is billed hourly. Aside from that, none of the stuff I do behind the scenes is billed to you. Bee’s Knees Print Studio’s main priority is producing high quality prints for cool people, not stacking nickles and dimes charging for stuff we love doing anyway.

How does shipping work?

Shipping is paid by Bee’s Knees Print Studio via UPS Ground for orders of $500 or more, all the way up to orders that would require freight shipping, at which point you will be billed for that expense.
International orders are case-by-case, but generally we cover half of the expense of UPS Ground for orders shipping out of the US.

Screen Printing and Artwork Prep

How many colors can you print?

This is a super important question, we’re glad you asked!
I currently print with a six color press. That means I’m limited to six individual colors on light garments, and five on dark garments because they generally require a white base.
That said, there are some printing methods that allow screen printers to mix colors on press, meaning things like CMYK or Process prints allow screen printers to mix tonal values on multiple screens, essentially creating any color in the visible color spectrum. The best method for your project will be used, and generally six colors is plenty to make your thing look awesome.

What types of inks do you use?

Bee’s Knees Print Studio is primarily a plastisol shop. Plastisol inks are basically a solid pigment in a carrier, and are generally extremely durable and vibrant.
Other inks like acrylic water-based, discharge, and solvent inks are available depending on your needs, but these inks have very specific uses that almost always lose out to the wash-fastness, brightness, and ease of use of plastisol inks.

What types of fabrics can I choose?

All kinds of stuff! We can print on pretty much any garment.
Blends, specifically heavier poly blends require some extra considerations like dye migration blockers and low cure inks, but they’re on the table if you need them!
We prefer to print on high quality cotton blanks because they print great, wash great, feel great, and look great. If that’s not your bag, I’m sure we can find something that’ll fit your needs.

Can I order a sample shirt with my art on it?

This is a question I get asked a ton. To answer, I want to detail the print process a little more here so you have a clear idea of what goes into making a t-shirt.

To print one shirt, or a thousand shirts, the process looks like this:
I’ll collect your artwork, make any adjustments necessary for it to be print ready, send it back to you, and await your approval.
Once approved, a mock-up is made to identify print sizes, shapes, and locations, which is again sent to you for approval.
When final approval is received for mock-ups and artwork, my job starts.

I’ll create film positives for each color in your order, up to six.
I’ll clean, de-grease, and coat the appropriate screens for your order.
I’ll expose the screens for your order with the film positives I printed.
Each screen will be washed out, dried, and placed on the press.
From there, each screen needs to be registered, test printed, and taped up.
Then, the dryer and flash need to be warmed up, and a test print needs to be made.
You’d need to receive that item, or a photo of it for approval.
Once the shirt, or all the shirts are printed, I’ll need to tear down the press, clean the screens, remove all ink, emulsion, and tape, and repeat the process.

Pretty involved, right?
Because the investment of time to create a test print is extremely high, it comes at a premium price. If you’re still interested in having a single item printed as a tester, give me a shout and we can discuss the expense. This would be the only time I would charge a fee for each step of this process.

Can you suggest a garment that’ll work for my project?

I sure can! If you let us know what you’re looking for when you request your quote, we can find all sorts of cool options that’ll work for your project. Bee’s Knees works with a handful of very well stocked wholesale suppliers across the country, so I’m sure we can find something you’ll be into!

Can I provide my own garments for you to print on?

This is a tricky one.
Bee’s Knees Print Studio is not a contract printing shop. We source 99% of the garments that leave our studio and here’s why.
If you provide some super exclusive, expensive, ultra-rare item that we can’t get, and the test print doesn’t work out, we can’t replace it. On top of that, 9 times out of 10, we can get the same stuff for a lot less than you’re paying in a retail environment, because we have a whole lot of wholesale accounts and receive wholesale pricing.
If you’re set on providing your own stuff, please let us know beforehand so we can make sure you’ve had a look at our terms of service, specifically those regarding customer supplied garments.

What kind of art files can I send you?

Pretty much anything!
Bee’s Knees Print Studio uses Adobe products pretty primarily for art prep, so things like .psd/.ai work best, but as long as it’s a decent resolution, we can make it work.
When in doubt, send the biggest files you can!

Did we miss something? Click HERE to pop over to the Contact page and drop us a line!