Initial Impact, Spring Lake, Wins National Design Award
Donna and Dale Szakats, owners of Initial Impact, a custom embroidery, screen-printing, and promotional products business, Spring Lake, and Sue Peckman, coordinator of sales and marketing, were named national winners in Stitches magazine’s sixth annual Golden Needle Awards for excellence in embroidery and digitizing. The Szakats’ received the national Design of the Year in the Technical, Corporate category for creating custom chefs’ coats for the 20th reunion celebration of Princeton University’s class of 1992.
Donna Szakats said, “Each class has a theme and they were the Tiger Chefs. They came to us with the idea and we had to figure out a way to come up with a very intricate and very colorful design that would ‘pop’ on the back of a chef’s coat. We chose to combine embroidery with appliqué, which is very technical and shows the extent of our experience.”
The intricate full-back design called “Tiger Chef 20th Reunion” was made up of 11 appliqué pieces and about 47,000 stitches. Initial Impact created about 600 of the decorated coats and t-shirts, which 100s of Ivy League alumni wore, marching in a parade at their reunion event.
Ginny Fineberg, a member of Stitches’ advisory board and a judge, said, “This is absolutely clean perfectly sewn embroidery. It was very appealing. You can’t help but smile when you look at this chef coat!”
According to Stitches, a monthly magazine for the commercial embroidery industry, judges based their awards on “overall sewing quality, including thread breaks; proper use of underlay; proper punching and registration; use of pathing, trims and color changes; and overall artistic merit, including design elements and aesthetic appeal.”
For further information, contact Donna or Dale Szakats at 732-449-4922.
About Initial Impact: Initial Impact, family-owned and operated company since 1984, offers customized embroidered corporate apparel, including corporate logos for golf shirts, team jackets, baseball caps, sports bags, among others; embroidered and screen printed t-shirts; imprinted team uniforms; promotional products; fundraisers, and personalized gifts for all occasions.
Shoppers can make purchases at 732-449-4922, or www.initialimpact.net or at Initial Impact, 516 Warren Avenue, Spring Lake, N.J. Store hours: Monday through Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Closed on Saturday and Sunday.
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