NOTHING TO HIDE: Proofs — The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

Matt Tenbush on September 23, 2026

NOTHING TO HIDE

Proofs — The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

If you have ordered custom apparel before, you have probably received a digital proof.

And if you are like most people, you probably looked at it for about 15 seconds, thought, Yep, looks good, and hit APPROVE.

We get it.

But that little PDF or image might be one of the most important steps in the entire production process.

So, in the spirit of our Nothing to Hide series, let’s talk about proofs—the good, the bad, and occasionally, the ugly.

THE GOOD: WHAT A PROOF ACTUALLY DOES

Before your shirts ever make it to a printing press, embroidery machine, or production floor, a digital proof gives everyone one last opportunity to see what we are actually planning to produce.

A good proof should clearly show things like:

The garment style and garment color
The artwork being printed or embroidered
Approximate size and placement
Ink or thread colors
Print locations
Names, dates, numbers, sponsors, and other important details

Think of it as the blueprint for your order.

It gives our production team something to follow, but just as importantly, it gives you an opportunity to make sure what we are about to produce matches what you had in mind.

That protects both sides.

If you asked for a navy shirt and the proof shows black, we want to catch it.

If the event is the 2026 Annual Chili Cook-Off and the artwork says 2025, we definitely want to catch it.

If your biggest sponsor’s logo somehow disappeared from the back of the shirt, we really, really want to catch it.

Because fixing something on a digital proof is easy.

Fixing 500 shirts is considerably less easy.

THE BAD: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN SOMETHING GETS MISSED?

Here is where things get a little uncomfortable.

Sometimes the customer misses something.

Sometimes we miss something.

And sometimes everybody misses it.

A word is spelled incorrectly. A number gets transposed. The wrong year is used. A logo is missing. A color isn’t what somebody expected.

The proof was sent.

The proof was reviewed.

The proof was approved.

And somehow the mistake still made it all the way through production.

So whose fault is it?

That sounds like a simple question.

After 50 years of doing this, we can tell you that it isn’t always a simple answer.

THE UGLY: “BUT YOU APPROVED THE PROOF.”

Technically, an approved proof matters.

A lot.

We can’t reasonably produce thousands of custom products every week without having a point where everyone agrees, Yes, this is what we’re making.

That is why proof approval exists.

But when something goes wrong, there is also a big difference between asking “Whose fault is this?” and asking “How do we make this better?”

That distinction matters.

You can spend an hour digging through emails trying to prove that somebody approved the wrong date.

You can point at the approval button.

You can argue over who supplied the artwork.

And sometimes those facts absolutely need to be established.

But at the end of the day, you still have a customer standing there with shirts they aren’t happy with.

At ASP, our starting point has always been pretty simple:

We want you to be happy with your order.

That doesn’t mean every mistake automatically results in a free reprint. Every situation is different.

It does mean we are going to have an honest conversation about what happened and start looking for a reasonable way forward.

SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO GET CREATIVE

One of the things 50 years in this business teaches you is that not every problem has the same solution.

If the order is still completely usable but something isn’t quite right, maybe a discount helps bridge the gap.

If a sponsor’s logo was accidentally left off the back, maybe we can add it to a sleeve.

If the wrong year somehow makes it all the way onto the shirts, maybe there is a creative way to print over it, incorporate another design element, or place the correct year somewhere else.

Sometimes the solution is easier than you think.

And sometimes there isn’t a clever fix.

Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and reprint the order.

We’ve done that too.

THE PROOF SHOULDN’T BE A “GOTCHA”

This may be the most important part of the conversation.

We don’t believe a digital proof should exist simply so a printer can pull it out when something goes wrong and say:

“See? You approved it.”

That’s not really the point.

A proof is supposed to be a communication tool.

It gives the customer and the printer an opportunity to slow down, look at the same information, and make sure everyone is on the same page before production begins.

Yes, customers have a responsibility to review their proofs carefully.

And yes, printers have a responsibility to build accurate proofs and pay attention to the information they have been given.

The best results happen when both sides take that responsibility seriously.

A LITTLE FULL TRANSPARENCY

There is another side of this that doesn’t get talked about very often.

It is easier for a larger shop like ASP to absorb the occasional reprint than it is for somebody running a press in their garage and producing a handful of orders each week.

A 100-shirt reprint hurts no matter how big your company is.

But when you are just starting out, one mistake like that can wipe out the profit from several other jobs.

We understand that because every big print shop started as a small print shop.

ASP wasn’t always operating out of a 30,000-square-foot facility.

There was a time when every order felt enormous and every mistake felt even bigger.

But how you handle those moments matters.

Maybe even more than how you handle the orders that go perfectly.

Customers don’t expect human beings to never make mistakes.

What they remember is what happened after the mistake.

Were you honest?

Did you answer the phone?

Did you listen?

Did you try to find a solution?

Did you treat the customer like a partner instead of an opponent?

Those things don’t require a giant production facility or a huge reprint budget.

Honesty is free. Kindness goes a long way.

50 YEARS LATER, WE’RE STILL LEARNING

Over the last 50 years, we have seen just about everything that can go wrong with decorated apparel.

And we’re sure there are still a few surprises waiting for us.

The goal isn’t to pretend mistakes never happen.

The goal is to build processes that catch as many of them as possible—and to build a company that knows how to respond when one slips through.

Proofs are a huge part of that process.

So the next time one lands in your inbox, give it more than 15 seconds.

Check the spelling.

Check the year.

Check the colors.

Check the logos.

Check it one more time.

We’ll be doing the same thing on our side.

And if something still manages to slip through?

We’ll figure out what happened, talk about it honestly, and start working toward a solution.

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