NCSU students helped develop a landscaping plan for TS Designs
Tom has been working with 19 students from Professor Will Hooker’s Permaculture Design Studio class at NCSU to develop a landscaping plan for TS Designs. This plan will include a conversion of our landscape to more edible plants like nut and fruit trees, berries, grapes, etc. So far we have built 3 trellises and planted pecan trees, magnolia, choctaw, pawnee, kiwi, and much more. In the photo above, the students are hanging up their designs to be critiqued. Stay tuned for updates on how everything is growing.
Tom has been working with 19 students from Professor Will Hooker’s Permaculture Design Studio class at NCSU to develop a landscaping plan for TS Designs. This plan will include a conversion of our landscape to more edible plants like nut and fruit trees, berries, grapes, etc. So far we have built 3 trellises and planted pecan trees, magnolia, choctaw, pawnee, kiwi, and much more. In the photo above, the students are hanging up their designs to be critiqued. Stay tuned for updates on how everything is growing.
Tom has been working with 19 students from Professor Will Hooker’s Permaculture Design Studio class at NCSU to develop a landscaping plan for TS Designs. This plan will include a conversion of our landscape to more edible plants like nut and fruit trees, berries, grapes, etc. So far we have built 3 trellises and planted pecan trees, magnolia, choctaw, pawnee, kiwi, and much more. In the photo above, the students are hanging up their designs to be critiqued. Stay tuned for updates on how everything is growing.
Healthcare at TSD
It’s the most wonderful time of the year for our small business: healthcare shopping time! TS Designs is looking at yet another health insurance rate increase this year. The private sector healthcare system is not working for us.
Ever since Tom and I started the company we have offered our employees healthcare. We pay for 50% of the individual’s cost and as the years have gone by and rates have increased so have the number of employees who have had to drop out.
We’re getting squeezed from a couple directions. First, we are a very small group; less than 20 people compared to the 100+ employees we had before NAFTA. Second, we are an older group with some serious pre-existing conditions – even a COBRA ex-employee that has health issues in the family is hurting our rate. It looks like we will be staying with Blue Cross & Blue Shield North Carolina, the largest in our state.
BCBSNC is a nonprofit healthcare company but is making so much money on their plans they paid their CEO, Bob Greczyn, almost $4 million last year, a $750,000 raise from the year before. They are planning an 11% rate increase this year. Why not give that excess back to their customers?
I would have no problem with his compensation if this were a competitive market, but in the US healthcare is not competitive. We need to remove the exemption from anti-trust laws the healthcare companies enjoy. Traditional market competition ideals do not apply to an industry that bases its decisions on risk pooling. In our system, the goal of profit-driven healthcare companies is not to provide healthcare, but to deny as many claims as possible to maximize profit. As economist Paul Krugman wrote, “The most successful companies are those that do the best job of denying coverage to those who need it most.”
Unless something is done, healthcare at TS Designs, and thousands of other small businesses, will become a casualty. And we’ll all share in those losses since the health issues will not go away. The number of uninsured will rise, bankruptcies due to healthcare will increase, and healthcare costs themselves will continue to creep higher and higher.
We need a public option to bring competition to the healthcare industry. The healthcare industry and their lobbyists clearly have the bucks to compete with it.
Introducing our Rebranding
We have created a clearer distinction and better cohesion between our three products. We are now providing our customers with three different, but equal routes to sustainability, depending on what they value most. Organic, local, or recycled–you choose which path to take.
We have created a clearer distinction and better cohesion between our three products. We are now providing our customers with three different, but equal routes to sustainability, depending on what they value most. Organic, local, or recycled–you choose which path to take.
Real Cost
With all the discussions going on about potential changes in healthcare and energy costs on the rise, we at TSD are looking back at how we started working to mitigate those upcoming challenges years ago.
Not a day goes by that we aren’t asked why our t-shirts cost more. Our NC-made, organic cotton, responsibly-printed/dyed shirts are about $12/piece versus an overseas-manufactured, conventional cotton, PVC/phthalate-printed shirt at about $8/piece.
Part of the journey to be a more sustainable company is understanding your real cost, to people, planet, and bottom line. Unfortunately, we live in a world in which businesses do not have to recognize all their external costs and consumers don’t understand how those costs are ultimately passed on to them. Here’s to the hundreds of our clients who have figured it out, and support us with their business.
Wanted: Sales Representative [FILLED]
THIS POSITION HAS BEEN FILLED TS Designs is looking for a full-time sales rep for custom print t-shirts to expand its customer-base. The position will be mostly in-house, with occasional travel. Requirements: • At least 4 years sales experience • Experience with a...
Vote for Land 2009
TS Designs is proud to help sponsor Vote for Land 2009, a $3000 grant program put together by our friends over at Great Outdoor Provisions to aid in the protection of the lands, water, and wildlife of North Carolina.
This year’s winner is the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust. Coastal Land Trust works with the state and other organizations to permanently protect Masonboro Island, the largest undisturbed barrier island along the southern part of North Carolina’s coast and host to a vast array of wildlife.
Greenpeace Opens T-shirt Exhibit in Japan
Greenpeace recently opened up a Communication Center in Japan’s Aamori District to tell the people the truth about commercial whaling. The entrance of the Communication Center is now hosting a Greenpeace T-Shirt Exhibit, to display Greenpeace’s history through thirty-eight years of campaign t-shirts, including some of the historic reproduction T’s made by TS.
Click here to check out Greenpeace Japan’s website (don’t worry, you can view it in English).
First Look at Harvest ’09
Wes Morgan of Rolling Hills Gin was kind enough to send us some early photos of the Cotton of the Carolinas Harvest ’09 up-and-coming crop. The photos were taken at Ronnie Burleson‘s (Wes’ uncle) farm over in Richfield, NC.
According to Wes, so far this year’s crop is right on track. Now we just need a hot damp summer, which in North Carolina is a pretty good bet!
Cotton of the Carolinas Shirts Available at Local Retailer
Great Outdoor Provisions, a Raleigh-based outdoor clothing and equipment retailer and long-time sustainability partner of TS Designs, is now offering Cotton of the Carolinas t-shirts in all of their retail outlets. To see GOP’s own blog post about this exciting new offering, click here.
If you’re in the area, drop by one of Great Outdoor’s several NC locations and pick up a 100% local t-shirt today!
TS Designs Featured in Printwear Magazine
TSD was featured as “Printwear’s Planet” in Printwear Magazine’s May 2009 edition.
New T-shirt: The Econscious Value T
TSD is proud to announce it will soon be offering the GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) certified econscious value T alongside our other sustainable t-shirt offerings. The GOTS certification verifies the value t's 100% organic cotton content and its compliance...
TSD Honored as Sustainability All-Star
On March 24th, TSD was honored by Apparel Magazine as one of five Sustainability All-Stars at its Tech Conference West in Irvine, CA. The winners were chosen based upon having taken significant steps toward incorporating sustainable best practices in their businesses.
TSD won this honor alongside sustainability innovators American Apparel, Greensource, Levi Strauss, and Patagonia.
Wanted: Operations Coordinator [FILLED]
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
Our Inks – An Experiment in Transparency
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.
Wanted: Screenprinting Press Loader
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.