Sip With Valley Young Professionals Trivia Night is 6:30 p.m. Friday, April 18, at Dark Horse Ink, 30540 S.E. 84th St., Suite 1, Preston. Dinner, drinks, trivia night helps support the Mount Si High School Scholarship fund. Age 21 and up. Cost is $20. To register, visit www. snovalley.org/vyp. Valley Young Professionals will award a $500 scholarship to a Mount Si High School who attends a technical college or trade school. The award is meant to enable students to get education and skills for a career in a trade industry. To learn more about the scholarship, teens or parents should talk to a counselor at Mount Si.
Hitting its stride
Snoqualmie Valley Record • April 9, 2014 • 7
Marathon that required many different clothing items. Hughes is still fulfilling orders from it. “I never want to say, ‘I’ve arrived,’” said Hughes. But the high-profile marathon job “is an indicator that we’re making it. It’s symbolic of a jump in our roles. It solidified what each of us do. It’s also symbolic of a next step in logistics.”
Grown up from a garage, Preston’s Dark Horse Ink screen printing business still climbing
How a shirt is made
Dark Horse’s Preston office includes a dark room, storage and a factory floor BY SETH TRUSCOTT with presses of various sizes. Customers Editor will bring designs to Dark Horse, or Dark Horse makes them for clients. Usually, As a college student and an avid designs must be tweaked on a computerrunner, Michael Hughes thought of before they go on your shirt. himself as a hard worker. And, a bit of Every design is printed on a transparent dark horse. sheet coated with a light-sensitive emulGrowing up in Issaquah, Hughes sion, which is developed to create the ink often talked about running his own print that is placed each shirt. business. But life seemed to be going Shirt presses look a bit like a merry-godown a different path, until an opporround. Shirts ride on rotating arms. After tunity—printing designs T-shirts getting stamped with ink, they go into a on his own press—presented itself. fast, infrared dryer. Designs can require Hughes took it and ran with it. several impressions of ink. Starting from his Snoqualmie Ridge Transparencies are re-used, with the garage, now at a 4,000-square-foot facSeth Truscott/Staff Photo tory at Preston, Hughes’ business, Dark It started in a garage, but is hitting its stride with major orders. Dark Horse Ink’s emulsion washed off by chemicals. Hughes insists on powerful filters to keep any Horse Ink, is hitting its stride. growing shirt screen-printing business in Preston is run by owner Michael Hughes, chemicals out of the drain. The name of the business comes center, with office manager Heather Berry, left, and print technician Jeff Dunn, Hughes is not easily satisfied. Take him from Hughes’ college days, while on right. Not pictured: Zach Shaw, Dark Horse’s print manager. to a department store, and “I notice things the running team at Seattle University. that are imperfections” in the prints. “If “It was this work-horse, dark-horse” was a frustrating process. At a Portland trade show, mentality, he said. “If we had a chance of success, it was Hughes and his wife met a screen-printing vendor, and you start thumbing things, you’ll see.” through hard work.” started asking questions and crunching numbers. SEE DARK HORSE, 8 Hughes founded the company in 2008, at age 25. A light went on for Hughes. Soon, he was starting his He still has the original four-arm press in operation at own printing and embroidery business. his Preston factory, but has since added bigger, more Hughes moved Dark Horse Ink to Preston’s impressive machines. business park in 2012. He had reached what was possible at his home, but ready to grow. Getting started Last summer, Dark Horse met its biggest project yet, an 11,000-shirt job for the Seattle Out of college, Hughes started a e Serving thie career as a teacher. But that wasn’t Snoqualmr Valley fo the right fit. s! 50+ year Patty, Bob & Gabe Hogan “I love math and I loved my kids,” he said. “But I wanted something Experienced - Professional - Compassionate Care that I could keep growing…. I’m for your animals AT YOUR HOME in my 30s. This is the decade where Exams • Lab Work • Vaccinations • Health Certificates you build a dynasty.” Parasite Control • Micro-Chipping • Supplements • Minor Surgery Hughes got into screen printing Behavior Counseling • Euthanasia in a roundabout way. Dr. Robert Hogan will work in conjunction with your His wife, Megan, had started regular vet or be a primary care giver for your animals a business, Earth Babies, offering children’s clothing and items. She 425.222.5665 • 425.761.0982 was contracting with a screen printwww.homeveterinaryservices.com er for some of her products, but it cattle • horses • swine • goats 1016004
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