Alpine is still a side-gig that I run out of my home in Castle Rock, CO. I love that I get to print on the side in addition to my day job as a marketing automation consultant and graphic designer. Since Alpine is a side-gig and not forced to be my single source of income, I can let it be whatever it is. That means I don’t market Alpine and I often don’t even compete with other shops for their business. I get to focus on the customers that come to me and help them create awesome apparel for whatever their needs are. I get to push the limits of what is normal or possible with screen printing, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

My goal is not to build a huge print company. My goal is to work with awesome people and help them create high-quality apparel that will become their new favorite item in their wardrobe.

Running my own print company has allowed me to make decisions about things that I experienced while at the company in TN. The biggest change was going all-in with water based printing. Most companies use plastisol and I realized really quickly that plastisol, while easy to work with and inexpensive, tends to leave a thicker print that can ruin the comfort of quality, triblend shirts. As a consumer, I hated spending the money on a high-quality shirt only to have a thick, unpleasant print ruin the softness of the shirt. I’ve written more about the differences between water based and plastisol inks and you can read that here.