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Category Archives: Portfolio

AquaClara – Something You Should Love

AquaClara – Something You Should Love

Printing t-shirts has its perks. Aside from losing weight sweating next to a 300+ degree conveyor dryer during the summer you get to meet extraordinary people doing world changing things. Scott and Claire Rumpsa are two of those people that we’ve grown to call friends and over the past few years we’ve been fortunate enough to play a super small part (pulling squeegees) to help out AquaClara, a Michigan based 501(c)3 with a mission to provide clean water for people living on less than $2 per day.

We asked Claire to tell us a little bit more about AquaClara…

T-shirts are a big deal in Kenya.  People love getting a t-shirt when there is a political campaign or a special event and wear them proudly for years to come.  We wanted the Aqua Clara t-shirts to be special, so we called our good friends at Ambrose.   The t-shirts say “Maji Safi” which means ‘clean water in Kiswahili.  The people in the blue t-shirts are our Community Development Entrepreneurs (CDEs).  Aqua Clara trains the CDEs to make, sell and maintain simple water filters and safe water storage containers for their local community.  Soon we’ll be training the CDEs on how to make rainwater harvesting systems and cool composting latrines.  The lovely women in the yellow t-shirts are our Community Health Promoters (CHPs) and they visit the people who buy water filters to make sure that everything is working properly and also to train the women in the households about simple hygiene improvements that can help keep their families healthy.   The Ambrose t-shirts are now the official uniform for Aqua Clara in Kenya and we are grateful for the lovely people who made them.

Thanks to Scott and Claire and the whole AquaClara team for partnering with us! Check out AquaClara for more info on how you can get involved.

Our shirts sailed to Hawaii!

Our shirts sailed to Hawaii!

Super big congrats to uncle Jim and the Brainwaves’ crew. After two weeks of sweat and salt water they landed successfully in Kaneohe Bay. This is their second time sailing from San Francisco to Oahu in the PacCup…but first time looking so good. We’re a little biased though.

Thanks for making such terrific shirts for the crew. They loved them! Here’s is a photo of Brainwaves’ crew coming into Kaneohe Bay after 14 days of racing, 11 of those days with big seas and high winds (30+ knots.) The leis sort of cover up your terrific logo, but there’s no avoiding the flowers. Even the boat has a lei.

Whatever you make…

Whatever you make…

Justice Team Tee

Justice Team Tee

A month ago my good friend Monica came to me with an idea. She heads up the Justice Team as a part of the Campus Ministries at Central College and they were looking for a way to spread the word about their team and also do a little good. The idea: we design a kickin’ tee and they  sell them on campus to raise money for an organization doing good. Since we’re fans of all those things (Central, faith, justice and t-shirts) we went all in and came up with the design above. It sold well on campus (160 tees!) so we thought we’d make it available in the new year. As always, they are hand printed on the extra soft + super sexy American Apparel Tri-Blend Track Tee and will soon be available in the shop. Below you’ll see the finished product and a little something on the symbolism behind the design.

Humanity

about-the-design

Artist Series Journals

Artist Series Journals

We’ve wrapped up production of a small run of handmade journals (80 total). They’re small in size but not in content as a plethora of goodness in contained there in: blank pages, stickers, quotes, art with a dash of political commentary. This is the first of many Artist Series journals and I’m excited about what’s coming down the chute. We’re going to include them in as many orders as we can until they run out. If you want a stand alone just drop me an e-mail and we’ll work something out…like $5…or a trip to Subs’N More.

Assembled pre-cutting

Front cover

On the chopping block