Mirror Image Inc.

Mirror Image Inc, a Pawtucket, Rhode Island based company that screenprints on garments and tote bags. The company's innovative screenprinting techniques have won every major award in the printing industry involving difficult photographic reproduction and special effects printing. In addition to the awards for exceptional productivity and talent, the company (as well as its owner, Rick Roth) have also gained national attention and accolades for their charitable work and community involvement.

History

Mirror Image was founded in 1989, by Rick Roth, a self-taught screen printer. He majored in philosophy and religion and graduated with honors from Colgate University, and later continued his studies at Harvard Divinity School.

Roth's first commercial job was helping a friend print a yellow shirt with green ink that said “Fed on Zinke’s Corn.” Roth went on to print thousands of shirts with homemade equipment, primarily the designs of his friend Ken Brown. His first popular print were caricatures by Brown. One was called "Ike and Tina" but it was Eisenhower and Tina Turner and another was "Steve and Idi" Steve Lawrence and not Edie Gorme, but rather Idi Amin. He hand stretched screens, made an exposure unit from a light bulb and pie plate, and printed by eye without the benefit of even a handpress. He eventually went to work at the Somerville Media Action Project (SMAP), a youth program that also did simple screenprinting. Roth went on to work with Mel King as Project Manager of the Youth Entrepreneurial Development Project (YEDP). At night he would still print shirts on the simple equipment at SMAP. Eventually he left YEDP and when SMAP closed its doors they eventually sold him its screen printing equipment. Upon buying the equipment, Roth formed the company Mirror Image with one employee. When it grew to three workers the workers, with encouragement from Roth, signed a contract with the United Auto Workers and remain unionized to this day. The name of the company Mirror Image was actually chosen by the first employee. After 11 months their landlord sold the building they occupied in Somerville, MA and they moved to an old steel warehouse in Cambridge.

In the 1980s Mirror Image's screen printing expertise grew, particularly reproducing photographs. Roth and his part-time employee Colin Cheer did something that was innovative at the time – they used four screens to print a black-and-white photograph. They also began to do primitive multichannel color separations, going beyond the usual CMYK to using two cyan screens and two magenta screens to control the full color prints. These separations were done using a stat camera and contact frame and using actual "screens". They then took advantage of advancing technology and using the earliest Apple computers and earliest versions of Photoshop they created "simulated" process separations. These were photographic reproductions using halftones but using colors chosen from each printed piece, not the usual CMYK.

During the 90s, the company, despite having a clientele with mostly small print runs of difficult prints, was turning out nearly a million shirts a year (with only a single eight-hour shift per day) and won numerous awards despite being a relatively small business.

Because of their growing reputation and expertise, Mirror Image was invited by the manufacturer of the press they used, MHM Screen Printing, to do testimonial ads and represent the company at domestic and international trade shows. At these shows, Mirror Image would create a technically difficult design, which was printed by Mirror Image staff in the MHM booth during the show. At this time MHM was having marketing issues having been seen by many as selling a press that was not supposed to be good at printing on dark shirts (which is more technically difficult than printing on white shirts). Mirror Image deliberately engineered designs that then would then, right on the trade show floor, be printed on dark shirts. This was so impressive that at the international printing exposition FESPA in 1996 at Lyons, France more than 100 people would be standing in the booth at a time watching the press print.

By 1999 Mirror Image was forced to move due to escalating rents in the Greater Boston Area. Mirror Image and 18 of 23 employees then moved to RI to a 30,000 sq ft (2,800 m²) space in Pawtucket where the shop still resides today.

With Mirror Image's reputation for doing photographs on t-shirts firmly established, Mirror Image began expanding to a new area of technical expertise, branching out into special effects printing, including stunning work using high-density jobs. Examples of some of his more innovative pieces were printing brand-name beer bottles that looked like photographs with water droplets that looked real. Mirror Image working closely with designer/printer KC Hruby also developed a technique to screen print what looked exactly like masking tape. In fact, people would try to peel the tape off the shirt it looked so real. This led to Mirror Image printing fashion work for companies such as Burton, Akademiks, Rocawear, Wrangler and Subware in addition to custom work for museums; big-name clients like Boston Beer Company (makers of Sam Adams Beer),; and hot-market printing for events like the Super Bowl that garnered Mirror Image local TV coverage. Mirror Image also began doing contract work for promotional products distributors, under the name Monkey Fish Printing.

Mirror Image’s reputation as a union shop that treats its employees well also has earned it jobs doing non-profit and political work. Mirror Image has done work for Oxfam America, the Green Party, Amnesty International, Students for a Free Tibet, Music Makers Foundation, New Orleans Musicians Clinic, and Farm Aid.^[1]

Awards

2005: Mirror Image's "Blueprint & Car" T-shirt was named First Place of the 2005 IMPRESSIONS Awards, Category: Simulated process color with gel effects

Honorable Mention, Category:Simulated Process Color Screen Printing, IMPRESSIONS Awards: "Rocawear Biggie” printed by Mirror Image

Honorable Mention, Category:Special Effects Screen Printing, IMPRESSIONS Awards: "Monkeyfish Masking Tape” printed by Mirror Image ^[2]

2004: Mirror Image's "Allen Iverson Photo" T-shirt was named Grand Champion of the 2004 IMPRESSIONS Awards, which were judged at the Dallas Imprinted Sportswear Sept. 10-12.

Mirror Image also took home first place in the Special Effects and Simulated Process categories.

These awards have set the standard for more than 25 years for showcasing the best decorating this industry has to offer. ^[3]

2001: The 2001 IMPRESSIONS Decorator of the Year Award honors Roth, who has devoted more than 25 years of his life to screen printing His creativity, technical developments, continuous business growth, and community-minded approach have made an indelible mark on the industry.^[4]

1994: Grand-prize winner of Screenplay's 1994 Terrific T-Shirt Contest, for high-quality fine-art printing.^[5]

Humanitarian Efforts

While Mirror Image has earned considerable respect within the industry for its exceptional productivity and talent, the company also has gained attention and accolades for its constant nonprofit work and community involvement. Roth has a reputation for achieving his business goals while staying true to his values: He runs a union shop, offers competitive wages and has fully paid for employees health insurance, hires people from all walks of life and countries of origin, and takes up myriad social and political causes on the side.

“We do a lot of human rights-related work because I’m interested in it,” including work for Amnesty International, Farm Aid and Oxfam, says Roth, who serves on the board of directors of Students for a Free Tibet.

Roth also steers clients toward using U.S.-made products, or at least garments from overseas manufacturers that he considers more ethical than average. “I just try to have as much influence as possible,” he says. “I wouldn’t print on a shirt that came from Burma, for instance. That’s a horrible place.”

Although almost all of Mirror Image’s nonprofit work is done for free, at cost or with some type of discount, it still serves a legitimate business purpose: The projects allow the staff to be highly creative compared to some of the company’s better-paying gigs. However, Roth’s real motivation has nothing to do with business.

“Less often than you might think does anybody send us real jobs just because they saw that we helped somebody else out,” he says. “But you’re just supposed to do good things in this world.”^[6]

Other Efforts include: For the past 10 years, Rick Roth has organized a fund-raising event at the Specialty Graphic Imaging (SGIA) Expo. Screen printed T-shirts were produced right on the show floor and sold to attendees. Roth then made arrangements with Kevin Aucoin, a local musician and manager of a chain record store in New Orleans, to sell the remaining shirts. Total revenues generated from the combined shows have surpassed $100,000.^[1]

Roth coordinated the creation of a retail Web site designed to raise money for schools to be built in Pakistan in the name of slain child labor activist Iqbal Masih. Since its inception, the Web site has raised more than $150,000. He has been a part of this project for the past eight years and continues to maintain the Web site as a revenue-generating source for the schools.^[1]

Mirror Image is the proud sponsor of the Pawtucket Film Festival, which was founded by Rick Roth nine years ago. This is a nationally and internationally acclaimed event that has brought the arts to the former mill town of Pawtucket that is trying to re-invent itself as artist-friendly.^[1]

The most recent research and development project right now at Mirror Image is coming up with a way to recycle inks, which normally have to be disposed of through waste control. The company also is working on a prototype of an organic edible ink that can be used to print T-shirts.^[1]

References

External links

• Mirror Image homepage
• Printing Boston Celtics shirts 2008
• Gators for the Greater Good, Impressions Dec. 2007
• Screen Printers.net
• Rick Roth named one of Five Maverick CEO's, The Counselor Magazine 2002