In demand & on-demand at Old West Balloon Fest

The Old West Balloon Fest is the premier hot air balloon event in Western Nebraska. It is a fun weekend for people of all ages, and this year they celebrate their 10th year of flying fun in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. The event was first popular 30-plus years ago and was “re-inflated” in 2015 to the delight of the community. The 10th anniversary was a spectacular show!

Mass ascensions of hot air balloons filled the sky each morning. There was an abundance of entertainment and activities including more than 200 drones depicting iconic Western Nebraska scenes and meet-and-greet opportunities with pilots. Food and merch vendors provided unique experiences, crafts, souvenirs, and collectibles while live music and balloon glows filled the evening skies. Our favorite? The weiner dog races. Little doggies competed for top dog in the hilarious chaos. The corn hole tournament didn’t suck either.

Business and life are all about relationships. Our folks taught us that, and we’re thinking that was pretty good advice. We have a colleague and good friend, Shane Wilson, who runs Scottsbluff Screen Printing and Embroidery. He has the only automated shop in the Nebraska Panhandle, as far as we know. You might recognize Shane’s name as he writes from time to time for GRAPHICS PRO. Over the last few decades, we have done a lot of really nice things for each other. We have bailed each other out several times.

There is no hesitation to lean on each other when needed. We joke that Shane wore out our embroidery equipment 20-some years ago with the hats they contracted to us. They recently put in brandnew machines that do great on hats. Don’t tell anyone, but that’s where we send our hats today. Payback is a … you know what they say.

We recently received a call from Shane about helping him out with a design and seps for the Old West Balloon Fest’s 10th anniversary shirts. Shane has been doing the designs in-house for years and he has an artist on staff, but felt like the client was looking for something a little more special than normal for the 10-year event. For many years, they have printed the merchandise for this event, and it is near and dear to Shane.

It was again time to rescue our pal, because that’s just the kind of people we are. He gave us shirt colors of red and heather gray, the previous years’ files, a quick thumbnail idea from the client, and the verbiage necessary for the project. The order was pretty open but specific. The customer only required a hot air balloon and the Scottsbluff National Monument. Gotta love it when a client knows what they want, generally.

We did some research using “Mother Google” for reference. Knowing the limitations of this shop was important. We only had six heads to work with, so we choose the balloon as the most critical part of the design, duh. Next important was the monument. We manipulated the imagery as best we could with this in mind, paying least attention to the other elements. The feeling and energy from the sky was the perfect way to go.

We also designed this image with a free-flowing, loose style that would best use the limited screens. Using Photoshop for design elements, several brushes were applied after scrolling down for the extra-textured brushes. The chalk/charcoal/pencil and the paintbrush palettes gave us the combination applied. Changing the width of stroked paths allowed different options. Color theory remained simple with primaries and one secondary only. Since we were focusing on the balloon, we added some textures going on in the sky to make it pop.

Once approved, we separated and sent the file and recipe using a simulated process method. Since this is not a very complex design, it was a relatively easy white printer or base-plate to build. This was going on multicolored garments.

The type was already in vector format. We would keep it that way and add it to the file for output after the tonal components were separated. We made some adjustments to our type in Illustrator by using the warp options under the effect menu. Our stroke weights had a fair amount of thickness, so we weren’t wrestling tiny areas between the colors and type on press. Once the design elements were arranged, we added the text to finish it out.

For time’s sake, it would have been the most convenient to run the whole job at our place. That wouldn’t happen. This was a hot market gig. The Scottsdale Screen Printing staff had to print on-demand and wouldn’t know quantities until the day before the event and would also need to remain at the ready for reorders. Shipping constraints prevented this solution.

We had Shane’s team output the halftones at 55 lpi, all at 22.5 degrees with an elliptical shape on their CTS (computer to screen). They ran the white on a 156 tpi at a 25 N/cm2 tension using a 70-durometer squeegee followed by a flash. Next, the RFU (ready for use) primary and secondary-colored inks printed all wet-on-wet on 230s at the same tension, using the same squeegees — darkest to lightest — and least coverage to most, and it all ran great according to Shane.

Hot air balloons are magical and one of the most photographed objects in the world. We found out the balloons don’t fly during much of the day because of the heat. This was the perfect time to visit the community attractions like the Scotts Bluff National Monument and take a hike. They sold out all the event tees at all the locations. The client and attendees absolutely loved the shirts, and Shane was once again a local hero in Scottsbluff.