Hey Gang,
I am heading up our first effort at a Tri team at work and I will be making a substantial order. I have landed on Customer Sublimation (www.customsublimation.com) as the supplier which is a subsidiary of Borah. Anyone have any experience or watchouts for this sort of thing. How is their gear etc.
Likely will be placing a $10,000 order with them and would like to make sure this is a good move.
Hey MHCoburn,
Cool, those cutom outfits should be great. I’m a graphic designer in Hawaii and have a little experience with custom tri/bike sublimation. I’ve worked only with Garneau, but know people at Sugoi and have spoken at length with a number of other custom sublimators. First what it usually comes down to is price and availability. Check around and see what type of turnaround times you come up with. Right now I think lead times will be pretty reasonable. 2nd check price. From the pricing I’ve seen at customsublimation.com they are more of a short print run specialist and thier prices reflect that. If you’re ordering 20 tops then great, go with them, but for a $10,000 order I’d personally pick another company. Also check around at your local shops and see what companies they’ve gone with and what pieces they’ve picked. A number of companies use the same fabrics and simply the cuts will be different. Usually if you ask they’ll tell you what fabric they are using even if they have thier own special name for it. If you are ready to commit right now but don’t have art ready, Voler is a nice option as you can basically buy your place in line although I remember not being all that impressed with thier turnaround or prices. Their 2005 line is much improved from 2004 though imho and very nice. My experience with Garneau was very good. They had some of the most competitive prices, a large variety of cuts to choose from. Very very fast and friendly service and a high quality final product.
If you need someone to put the art together as far as layign everything out on the templates or actually creating the art let me know. I charge $35 an hour versus thier in-house work which will usually run $60 an hour or so. I can email you some pics of the work I’ve done. I feel I do very good, high quality, attractive work so if you’re interested let me know. If not, good luck with the order and if there is anything else I could help out with let me know.
Aloha, Tai tai@taigraphx.com