Grandville High School Shirts

Today Randy, the graphic artist here at Sparrow Graphics, is working on the t shirts for Grandville High School. I'm really excited to see what they look like, and to get one before the kiddies :D

If you are from Grandville High School and you have any ideas for t shirts, let me know! YOUR design could be the next one that Grandville gets!

I just finished up printing up some Grandville - Kenowa t Shirts for Gymnastics. They look pretty good, just a normal 2 color pink and orange. Good luck this year girls!

Helping Hands Ministries - T Shirt Donations

Greetings again fellow t shirt goonz. Today I will be designing the work shirts for Helping Hands on Alpine. I will be donating them myself, not through Sparrow at the moment. Later on in March I will be designing the jeans and t shirt re-prints we'll be doing.

-- The Grand Rapids Mission Project --

Step 1. Design and deliver Helping Hands work shirts
Step 2. Design jean and shirt prints for blank clothing
Step 3. Go to Helping Hands, get jeans and other UNembellished clothing
Step 4. Decorate
Step 5. Return to store with new, custom printed clothing for them to resell at a higher profit

They get FREE T SHIRTS AND FREE CUSTOM CLOTHING

We get FREE ADVERTIZING, A GREAT FEELING OF HELPING BETTER THE COMMUNITY

Phantom Raw - Grand Rapids - Gun Rue

Phantom Raw gets off da hook in Grand Rapids - West Side. Gun Rue will love this new cd from Christ's 'Grand Mob'

Phantom Raw aka Craig aka Noble Slayer came over to the crib yesterday. He brought his cd for me to hear and it totally blew my mind. Now normally I'm a hard guy to please when it comes to music... let alone CHRISTIAN HIP HOP. That title kinda brings instant objection at first, but that 1st song was rockin and so was the rest! I'm into hardcore music so its gotta be fast, hard, and have a killer hook and Phantom Raw hits the keys right on target.

Now the tracks have to be named and I'll upload the mix tracks and b sides so Phantom Raw can give out FREE CDs. Artwork should be done within a week. Then we'll concentrate on t shirts and promotion. I don't expect any monetary gain from this, I just want to help out people and teach the right way of life, and this will only help me to do so.

We're going to rock Grand Rapids so hard the Amway Grand falls down!

The HOLY WAR is on!

Grandville High School t shirts

Meeting day went well. Jostens - the people that do yearbooks, caps, gowns, class rings, etc.. - is testing a new strategy, which cannot be discussed at this time. Overall, we are setting up a site for Grandville High School students(about 2k) to order class shirts from us, through Jostens. Last year we had a similar test, not so much a 'test' than an occurance that sparked ideas. One client ordered shirts for the yearbook staff, then by word of mouth, about 10 other orders came in. Now, with Grandville High School as a testing grounds, we'll see how much of a viral effect this has.

Shout out to Mr. Dolloff(sp?) at Grandville High School
Thanks for teaching me HOW to screenprint in Exploring Tech. class!
Hope to see you someday.

Custom Ink T Shirt Awards

I was very happy the other day when we got a tin of cookies from Custom Ink because we got a 100% perfection rating last month. Then we got a call from them congratulating us because they have NEVER had a printer hit that mark for 5 months in a row. That made me happy because I take pride in my work, but 5 months really isn't that long to go w/o error. That kind of says something about all 99.999% of the other printers that work for them.. But hey, when you work with fortune 500 companies, a certain level of skill is required so I get used to that quality. YAY, more work for us!

T Shirt Man - "Hooks em up"

Matt Hoeksema - Hooks em up. That's my new personal slogan given to me by Grand Rapid's greatest rapper - The Noble Slayer. I do hook 'em up, so it fits well. Soon we shall have some kool t shirts for the scene in GUN RUE. +1 to the t shirt crew

Cessna: The Original T Shirts

Hello fellow t shirt makers, or whoever you are. I am Matthew Grant Hoeksema, professional t shirt maker. I began working at Sparrow Graphics early in 05, primarly doing printing for Cessna, American Aviator, Flying Magazine, Oshkosh Flying Show, and a few other clients. Sporty's Magazine has some of our unique designs, and the rest are more common, and can be found at the main Sparrow site(Cessna t Shirts). We have 2-8 color presses, a 20ft dryer unit, and the other basic things found at a print shop.

Ever since high school I've had a passion for making t shirts. The old crew used to be Andy Johnson, Troy Ryan Longton aka Impunity, Kevin Cook aka Mithrandir, and I, Matt Hoeksema aka ManaKill. The crew broke up after high school due to the usual 9 to 5 crap. Troy passed away from an OD which was very unexpected. Now as far as the 'shirt crew', it is just me.. well, I guess I can count my biz partners and my lovely wife, who supports me 100%.

You can expect to hear me rant about things in the printing industry that piss me off. Including some golden tips that you may be able to use in your printshop. Granted you may not be making Cessna t shirts, but you start small and one day, who knows!