Printing Across the Pond

IN THE LATE 1970’S, my print shop, Great American Screen Designs, was a “show” shop for Precision Screen Machines. Company owners and execs who wanted to see Precision machines in action were taken to my shop since we ran our machines all-out, all the time — to the tune of 900 pieces per hour. That wasn’t the norm back then. Gavin Kidd, who has worked for several industry companies over the years and has been the Director of the Screen Print Division for Hirsch Intl. since 2007, was from the UK. Anytime someone wanted to see a machine in action, he would send them to our Brooklyn shop. One time, he sent Mark Yates over from Mobile Merchandising in England. Mark and his partner Trevor Gulliver were interested in doing band printing in England.

I wasn’t there to meet him since I was in Atlantic City setting up for the first Imprinted Sportswear Show to be held there. But I received a call from Mark saying he wanted to meet with me and that he would come to Atlantic City. Rather than taking a bus, which was very inexpensive, Mark got into a taxi and asked the driver if he would be interested in going to Atlantic City. Off they went. I met with Mark, and we hit it off very well. With his British accent, he made an impact.

We discussed the fact that my shop was printing bootlegged rock’n’roll shirts and selling them at the concerts. Highly illegal of course, but in the early days of band merch production, regulations weren’t in place for infringement. Thankfully that has changed.

International Partners in Success

After discussing the options for a collaboration that would bring band merch printing to Europe, we set up an agreement that said we would design and separate rock designs for their shop with our design team. Then his team took the artwork, shot the screens, and we guaranteed the designs would print perfectly.

The Mobile Merchandising’s production department needed to use Union Ink’s Maxopake colors since that was what we worked with and were the most opaque inks available at the time. The cost would be $1,000 per design. If it didn’t print the way we outlined, he wouldn’t have to pay for it. But the only design I can remember that didn’t print correctly was one of the B-52’s.

When the following January came, my partner at Great American Screen Designs Leon Dymburt and I were invited to London to spend time at Mobile Merchandising to see how the company worked and how we could all benefit from our relationship. January in the screen-printing field usually is not very busy, so going overseas for a week wasn’t an issue as far as missed production time and revenue.

That great opportunity didn’t come without its bad decisions early on — it was a nightmare. Leon and I got on a Freddy Laker discount flight, which was a mistake. The seats were so close together that our knees touched the ones in front of us. Sir Freddie Laker, a pioneer of low-cost air travel, revolutionized transatlantic flights with his “Skytrain” service by offering no-frills, affordable fares between London and New York in the late 1970s. Needless to say, we took a PanAm flight back.

At that time, Mobile Merchandising was in Shad Thames, a very old building in a very old part of London near the docks. There was no elevator; just a hoist to bring goods up to the second floor. It was not the most ideal situation. But as usual, we had a great time while we were there. We stayed in Mark’s flat and visited pubs together, learning how to throw darts and drink large quantities of Bitter (beer).

On one of the trips, I was invited to dinner go to Mark’s brother Lance’s flat for Indian food. He was living with his girlfriend Nishi — who later became his wife — who is from India and cooks fantastic traditional food from her country. During dinner, Lance said there was no way he was going to print rock shirts since “there was no money in rock’n’roll printing.”

In the end, Mark and Trevor, along with the managing directors of Mobile Merchandising, finally decided to take on rock’n’roll screen printing. The design that won the shop the contracts to do rock printing was the one of Status Quo with images of the group on the shirt. In that era, few other screen printers could achieve printing faces correctly, and this team excelled at it given the technology at the time.

We continued to do the designing and separating for them throughout the years. And Lance, who was convinced there was no money in this niche, went on to become the marketing manager for the Rolling Stones and made quite a living with them. Doing guess what? Rock’n’roll T-shirts.

Leon and I went to London each January for about three or four years, always staying with Mark who was in a different flat each time we showed up. Over the years, both Mark and Trevor left the screen-printing field and got into the restaurant trade when Mobile Merchandising was sold.

Mark opened several restaurants including one that served Mexican food (in England?!) called Break for the Border. Trevor opened a high-end restaurant, St. John, which won a Michelin Star with Chef Fergus Henderson. He still runs it today. Throughout the years, Mark opened several other restaurants and used his artistic creativity from his early days of screen printing to make each eatery unique.

Old friends are of great importance to me. Unfortunately, Mark passed away in October of 2023. RIP my dear old pal!