One of the most familiar storefronts on Britton’s Main Avenue continues to evolve, blending small town roots with big time capability. HH Design, owned by Hillarey Warner, has marked
more than a decade in business and is experiencing one of its most significant periods of growth yet, driven by new technology, expanded space, and a growing team.
Now located at 720 Main Avenue, HH Design has been part of the downtown landscape for several years, but recent upgrades inside the building are changing what the business can do and how quickly it can do it. The most notable addition arrived this past spring, when Warner invested in a large automatic screen printing machine, the third screen printer the business has owned and by far the most advanced.
“This one is a game changer for us,” Warner said. “It’s automatic, eight colors, ten stations, and it can print ten shirts at a time. We literally had to cut a hole in the wall to get it in and add a garage door on the back of the building.” The new machine replaced two older manual presses that required significant physical labor and multiple passes to complete a job. Warner explained that screen printing itself is a detailed, labor intensive process that many customers do not fully see. Designs are created, screens are coated with photo emulsion, exposed to light using a transparency, washed out to create a stencil, and then carefully set up before ink is ever pushed onto fabric.
“It’s quite the process,” Warner said. “There’s a lot of labor and materials involved, so we have to be more strict on minimums now for this type of printing. Screens are re-used so after a job is complete, we wash the screen or design out for the next job and most of the time we aren’t able to just make one more for a late order. Fortunately, we do have a Direct to Garment printer and a heat press for smaller orders that don’t reach the minimum order for screenprinting”
THIS IS A SPONSORED STORY. TO READ THE FULL STORY, SEE THIS WEEK'S JOURNAL OR CALL 605-448-2281 TO BECOME AN ONLINE SUBSCRIBER.
