Impressions - January 2012 - (Page 52)

Shop SPOTLIGHT Choke Shirt Co. The ‘Choke’ Principle Underwhelmed by local T-shirt designs, two Seattle guys created one of the Paciﬁc Northwest’s hottest apparel brands. Here’s how they did it. By Michael J. Pallerino, Contributing Writer In 2010, Choke Shirt Co. left a window-less ofﬁce space and moved into a larger ofﬁce that it quickly outgrew. Today, its 3,000-square-foot location has ample room for its two Riley Hopkins manual screen printing presses and the M&R Diamondback Auto Press that was installed at the beginning of this year. s Choke Shirt Co. At A Glance Gonzales decided to give their notion some legs. They started designing T-shirts in their apartment. After creating a few designs, they turned to a friend, who just happened to have a screen printing press in his garage, to handle all the original printing. Before long, they started selling the line at those same Fremont markets. The line took off and a company was born. The most attention-grabbing part of the line and company name, Choke, comes with a bit of a funny story, says Thompson, who today is vice president of sales. “Someone threatened to choke somebody if they couldn’t come up with [a name], so Choke it was,” he says. “It’s a little meaner-sounding than our designs actually are.” From there, a brand was formed. Not long after Thompson and Gonzales — the company’s president — saw a need for quicker turnaround times and more creative freedom in the printing process, they Company Name: Choke Shirt Co. + Print Shop Address: 920 S. Holgate St. Ste. 109 Seattle, WA 98134 Founded: 2008 No. of Employees: 4 Decorating Methods Offered: Screen Printing, Vinyl Heat Transfers Company Websites: chokeshirtco.com; chokeprintshop.com; pigeoncamerakids.com eattle’s Fremont neighborhood, the eclectic bohemian district just north of downtown, has been known to inspire those who frequent its historic and uncanny streetscapes. In their leisurely Sunday strolls through the Farmer’s Market in and around the neighborhood, Matt Thompson and Jeff Gonzales were continually drawn to the T-shirt vendors showing off their wares. And then a funny thing happened: They found themselves revisiting discussions on several of the lines through which they sifted. The endless conversations turned into one underlying proclamation: Surely, even they could do better. But could they? Could two guys, who had design and retail backgrounds, create a line of T-shirts that were more appealing than the ones they saw during their strolls? The idea didn’t seem that far fetched, as Thompson recalls. So in December 2008, Thompson and 52 Impressions >> January 2012 purchased their ﬁrst Riley Hopkins Manual Press (6/4). And when they found out they needed a place to put it, they leased their ﬁrst studio space, a 450-square-foot ofﬁce in a 100-year-old building with no windows or ventilation. “The press and dryer barely ﬁt in the main room,” Thompson recalls. “We exposed and cleaned the screens in our small bathroom.” MAKING MORE MOVES As of this past November, the Choke impressionsmag.com http://www.chokeshirtco.com http://www.chokeprintshop.com http://www.pigeoncamerakids.com http://www.impressionsmag.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Impressions - January 2012

Impressions - January 2012
Contents
First Impressions
From the Show Director
FYI
ISS Conferences
Product Gallery
Celebrating the Industry’s Best
How to Choose a DTG Printer, Part I
Back to Basics
Shop Spotlight
Embroidery Technique
For Screen Printers Only
Digital Decorating
Digital Decorating
Online Directory
Business to Business
Classifieds
Ad Index

Impressions - January 2012