Phantom Chicken is small manual screen print studio based in Portland, Oregon. Our studio houses a manual 4-color press, and every apparel item is printed with a squeegee by hand. We screen print t-shirts, hoodies, and other apparel for events, businesses, and other groups. See more about how screenprinting works HERE
Do you need a quote for T-shirts for your next event? Fill out this FORM and we'll walk you through the process.
We are both creative types and have been involved in all sorts of making.
Gregg hand-pulls each color of each image of every shirt printed in our studio. We're talking thousands of shirts, tens of thousands of pulls. Makes for some good arm workouts!
In this portfolio, we have images divided into 1, 2, 3, and 4-color printed designs. They are photographs of actual printed images on fabric, wrinkles and all. Shirt folds can distort the graphic image a bit, but they are great examples of Gregg's screenprinting work.
One of our favorite things is to mix ink colors. We often have to mix a specific color for a project. To do that, the client picks a Pantone Matching System (PMS) color. From there we can get a mixing formula from the ink manufacturer.
Before mixing a large batch, we mix a very small amount to test the formula to make sure it is the color we want. Sometimes this can take many tries.
Mixing ink color is one of our favorite things to do, as we both love color. Mixing all these small amounts to test made us think of making these videos. We have recently started using Vimeo for video hosting. Instead of setting up a subscription based site for sharing these videos, we set up a "tip jar". If you leave your mailing address, we will send a thank you note or gift - just like a site such as Patreon.
See Ink Mixing Monday Videos HERE
Gregg started his career in New York City as a print broker for a large company that printed packaging, flyers, paper forms, and brochures. He was responsible for ordering paper to editing to overseeing the actual print run.
Moving to Portland was a step back from the stress of business in the big city. His first job was mixing ink colors for a company who printed large format ads for city buses. To test the ink colors Gregg used the Roasted Chicken image. To test the ink colors, he printed on the same sticker stock they used for the bus ads. He would take them home and cut them out and eventually he had a big pile of roasted chicken stickers.
When the bus ad company went out of business and Gregg was laid off, he decided to start out on his own printing t-shirts for friends who were in some local bands. He used the roasted chicken stickers to write his name and number on as business cards to give to other bands for more print work.
He was printing shirts in the basement of a house name Big Blue. So this new business was called: Big Blue Productions. Around this time he met Gail and she started helping him in the print business doing design and bookkeeping.
Eventually, roasted chicken stickers were everywhere and people would say: "Hey you! Aren't you that chicken guy - you print shirts - right?"
When Gail quit her last bartending job in 2000 to work full time with Gregg, they decided a name change was in order!
It was decided the word "chicken" had to be in the new business name after all those stickers! Time was spent trying to connect printing and chickens, but there are no other connections than the one we are making.
Technology sent business to the internet and Gail started working on a new concept called a website, and that became the face of the business. Gregg could focus on printing rather than networking, which meant he spent more time printing in the basement.
Then one evening, while discussing how technology was making him feel like a ghost behind a screen in the world of websites and online business, the term phantom was uttered and BOOM!
Phantom Chicken was born!
While our custom screenprint work is commercial, we do have an online retail store.
This is where you can find some of our own designs printed on apparel, and other things we might make or print.
It is eclectic and everything is super limited. We are going through the process of changing all items in our Gift Shop to include USPS Priority Mail shipping.
If you have found this page, use code: HIDDENGEM22 for 22% off everything in our Gift Shop!
Gail is also an avid quilt maker and has been blogging about quiltmaking for a few years. She's been creating quilt patterns and surface designs for digital printing.
