A day of packing orders in Dallas

Orders come in overnight and get printed first thing, because the printers run better in a cool room than in a Georgia afternoon. By the time the coffee is finished, the plates are loaded and the first layers are down.

The shape of a day

• Morning: load the plates, dry the spools that need it, and start the longest jobs first.
• Midday: cut supports, sand contact points, and check every piece under a light.
• Afternoon: pack, weigh, print labels, and hand-write gift notes.
• Last run of the day: start the overnight prints so the plates are working while we sleep.

Where the time actually goes

Printing is the visible part and it is maybe a third of the work. The rest is the unglamorous middle: cleaning a nozzle that clogged, reprinting a piece with a layer shift, answering the email from someone whose package went to the wrong address. A day where nothing goes wrong is a rare and beautiful thing.

The printers do the manufacturing. The rest of the day is quality control.

Orders leave the studio Monday through Friday, usually within three business days. If a piece needs a reprint, we tell you rather than shipping the flawed one and hoping.