Courtesy photo At Diamond House International, employee Jesse Frantila lines up a hoodie on the automated eight-table, four-color ROQ screen-printing machine.

EDITOR NOTE: The Daily Press will be featuring a series of articles on local businesses, highlighting their history and what makes them unique. The series will run on a regular basis in the Daily Press.

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HOUGHTON — A creative company that prints promotional material, apparel and other merchandise for businesses, organizations and individuals is based on the Keweenaw Peninsula and serves customers in Upper Michigan, around the country and even abroad.

Diamond House International was founded in 2017 by entrepreneur Phillip Vasquez, who side-stepped into the current business from a film production operation he had also founded.

Vasquez, originally from California, studied filmmaking and audio engineering at Full Sail University in Florida. After moving to the U.P. and building a studio in his house in Hancock, he grew a collection of clients for whom he made video content — commercials for companies, recordings of local hockey games — as Diamond House Productions and DHI TV.

“And then finally I decided I was going to open up a shop for marketing and branding, because that’s what I do,” said Vasquez. “And I like to help businesses open.”

He created Diamond House International to act not only as the name under which he would conduct the new business, but also as a parent company of the video production studio.

“But I’m so busy in this other realm of stuff now, I don’t get to (the filmmaking) very often,” Vasquez admitted.

Diamond House International has taken off quite a bit from where it started. They began with one silk-screen machine and one embroidery machine in part of a building, Vasquez said.

“From there we just flourished,” he said. “Over the years, we’ve built up (and have) five commercial embroidery machines. I got an automatic ROQ printing machine. I got my normal manual silk screen machine. We do direct-to-garment (DTG) printing. We do direct-to-film (DTF) printing. We do all custom graphics.”

Another method of garment coloration they use is sublimation, through which dye is transferred onto white polyester fabrics. Full-color apparel like sports jerseys are made this way, colored first and then sewn together. Vasquez said Diamond House makes sublimated jerseys for Keweenaw Roller Derby athletes.

They also design logos, turn pencil sketches into digital vectors that be scaled up infinitely without losing resolution, digitize for embroidery, make signs and banners, and produce and install vinyl appliqués for windows and wraps for vehicles.

Screen printing, DTG and DTF printing are all methods of applying graphics to fabrics in ways that are often preferable to vinyl, which is commonly cut out and adhered to apparel but is prone to cracking and peeling.

Screen printing is the oldest method — forms of it were used in Asia a thousand years ago. It’s still valued for its quality and durability; the thick ink, after being pushed through mesh screens that were traditionally silk but now tend to be polyester, bonds well to a number of materials. Screen printing is a good choice for large batches of products with a limited number of solid colors, because stencils are made for the various colors.

The ROQ (a brand name) printing machine Vasquez mentioned automates screen printing and is capable of printing four shirts at once, making it ideal for big orders.

DTG printing, which was introduced to markets in the early 2000s, can achieve more subtle details and variety. It prints aqueous ink from jets — much like home inkjet printers — directly onto items like t-shirts.

DTF is another method that allows for greater detail than screen printing. It, too, uses inkjet technology — but instead of printing right onto the end product, it applies ink to a transfer film usually made from PET (polyethylene terephthalate). Powder adhesives are then laid over the ink and dried before the print is heat-pressed onto a garment, leaving the film behind.

“DTF is the new technology of printing,” Vasquez said. “It’s just as durable as silk screen, but it’s for people who want, like, a full color t-shirt or run of a couple shirts. And process of taking it to silk screen is pretty tedious for a small run.”

Though a heavy portion of the business comes from bulk orders — like the hundreds of shirts recently ordered by the Forsyth Township Fire Department in Gwinn — and business customers like Blade’s Bait and Tackle in Kipling and Race-Driven in Escanaba, Diamond House International doesn’t shy away from small jobs, even a single item for an individual.

‘We do what nobody else will,” Vasquez said. “One shirt can turn into big orders down the road, because they tell everybody about it.”

He said that customers love their experiences with Diamond House. Reviews on Google reflect that.

“We’re extremely fast with production. Our customer service is impeccable. Our prices are competitive…because we’re competing with the bigger cities,” Vasquez said.

A lot of their business comes from word-of-mouth referrals. People also find out about DHI from events — for example, they had a large booth space showing off rows and stacks of printed garments at last year’s U.P. Ice Fishing Hunting Expo and will be back again when the show returns to the Ruth Butler Building this September.

They get a fair amount of traffic online, too. Vasquez says that Facebook has a “huge reach,” and Diamond House just recently launched a new website (diamondhouseinternational.com), improved from the one they’d had previously.

Though they ship around the world and customers need not be local, Diamond House International continues to aim to serve U.P. residents and visitors well.

“We’re looking to be like the U.P.’s number one tourist destination for basically, garments and gifts and collectibles that we all make in-house, not outsourced from other people,” Vasquez said.

To that end, DHI hopes to soon open a bigger location. Vasquez said they hope to erect a new 6,000-square-foot structure on U.S. Highway 41 to better capture passing tourists. The plan would be to relocate all operations there, vacating their current home.

Diamond House International’s current premises, which feature both manufacturing facilities and a storefront, are located at 903 Razorback Drive, Suites 7 and 8 in Houghton. DHI now occupies 3,000 square feet there, but began with 1,800, Vasquez said.

“We knocked the wall down right after COVID and took over the tobacco shop next door, which was another 1,200 square feet. We got a full production facility; the only thing we don’t have here is a garage, and that’s one reason why we’re looking build a building here shortly.”