Mother of two daughters, Sarah Broyles decided to combine her creativity and passion for empowered, active women. The result? Fauna Extreme: A series of active tanks we’re printing that are inspired by some of the amazing creatures in our environment.

Some Initial Photos of the Tanks

Here are some of the initial Mock-ups of the art. Stay tuned to see the finished product…

Fauna Extreme Initial Mock-up: Antelope

Initial Mock-ups Fauna Extreme: Tiger

UPDATE:
Fauna Extreme is up and running… here is a link to their online storefront and a few photos of their beautiful tanks. Good job Sarah!

Fauna Extreme's Beautiful Athletic Tanks

We’re getting ready for the Green Festival in Sf by printing up some goodies. We want to show how soft and vibrant water based screen printing can be, so we’re making some totes and other fun things to pass out. Are you going to be there? Send us a tweet – we’ll track you down and give you some booty.

We’ve recently added ECOBAGS® as a supplier and ever since, our staff can’t stop fighting over the samples they’ve sent over. Our favorites? The Canvas Shopping Tote made from recycled cotton and the 100% Organic Canvas Book/Overnite Tote.  We asked Chris, our lead designer and resident tester why she loves hers, and she says, “They’re super sturdy and the perfect size.  I use mine for grocery trips or a weekend night-bag.”

***BONUS: Are you a Twitter user?  Tweet about the contest with hashtag #ecoprintworks and you’ll receive a second entry.

//***EDIT***// Congratulations to Jared Karnes from OneTribe Organics – winner of our free custom tote contest. Below are a couple pics of the finished product.

We work with a lot of up and coming designers to help create their own clothing lines – using our water-based inks to create custom printed labels. Think you’ve got ideas that the world should see? Give us a ring or drop us an email. We’re happy to talk over the process.

I’m not sure if we needed to travel this far to experiment with Permaset, but as Berlin is at the forefront of the screen printing industry, it wasn’t a bad excuse to take a little trip.

Below are a few pictures of us at the studio of Lindsey Ruben who runs a boutique couture print shop experimenting with Permaset. More to follow…

Ecoprintworks Berlin Permaset

By popular request, we’re now offering recycled hang-tags from our friends at Greenerprinter up in Berkeley.Recycled hang tags are a great way to brand your apparel – as well as pass along important information to customers about the production characteristics of both the garment and the printing process employed to create your beautiful finished product. Drop us a line today at 877.326.2052 to talk about minimums and costs. You can also contact us here.

The Vallon Institute, a think tank out of Washington DC focusing on health and social sustainability has, in an effort to raise funds and awareness for their cause has come up with an adventure race called Go Urban. Go Urban, in their words, is a mash-up of competition, problem solving, teamwork, and urban adventure designed to promote their Get Outside (GO) initiative.

Go Urban got with us to help create custom apparel that would be representative of their core values of sustainability and environmental responsibility.

The races will take place in thirteen locations throughout the country. You can sign up here.

EcoPrintworks made an appearance at the New Living Expo – a fun, green oriented festival that took place over the weekend in San Francisco’s south of market district.

It’s always good to get out and see what other innovators in the industry are up to. Klean Kanteen, Rainbow Grocery, and Urban Yogis – among others, were out, spreading the word.

Ecoprintworks at New Liviing Expo

The use of organic cotton is up – worldwide production has inceased 153% last year alone – and for good reason.

Organic Cotton Crop

Less than 3% of agricultural land is planted with conventionally grown cotton, but that 3% consumes 20% of all pesticides used and 22% of all insecticides. According to the WWF (pdf), of the 46 chemicals commonly used on cotton, five are considered ‘extremely hazardous, eight ‘highly hazardous’, and 20 ‘moderately hazardous’.

And that’s just not bad for the planet. According to the World Health Organization 20,000 deaths occur each year from pesticide poisoning in developing countries.

A 2000 USDA study revealed that eighty-four million pounds of pesticides were sprayed on cotton in the U.S.A
That adds up to 1/3 of a pound of chemicals to produce enough cotton for a t-shirt, and 3/4 of a pound for a pair of jeans.

Organic cotton not only diminishes the use of these terribly harmful substances, but it uses less water to irrigate, and regenerates the soil with sustainable crop rotation practices.

To read more about organic cotton:
Organic Trade Association
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