Phantom Chicken is a small, family-run screen printing company that manually prints t-shirts, hoodies, and other apparel for businesses, bands, schools, teams, and events. We are a two-person team that have been printing t-shirts together for over 25 years.
Your t-shirt project will be in good hands from start to finish.
We are real people.
Our goal is to print great apparel for our clients.
We are happy when our clients are happy.
The story started with Gregg who lived in New York and worked as a print broker after finishing college. He coordinated print projects from flyers to cereal boxes and became familiar with the printing industry.
With printer connections, he was able to create a piece of film positive with an image of a roasted chicken from an obscure band. IYKYK 😉
Gregg eventually moved to Portland and found a job mixing inks for a local print shop that did large vehicle decals. He used his new roasted chicken film to create a test screen for testing ink colors. It didn't take long before Gregg had a huge stack of multi-colored Roasted Chicken stickers.
After being laid off, Gregg started printing t-shirts in his basement for some local bands. He wrote his contact info on the back of all those chicken stickers and used them as business cards.
"Hey... you're that chicken guy?!? You print T-shirts?"
This recognition helped in getting a small business off the ground. A couple years later, Gregg met Gail playing pool at a local dive bar. They became fast friends and soon they became a team in personal and business endeavors.
Gail learned Photoshop and Illustrator and started creating show posters, cards, and basic t-shirt designs for Gregg to print. She quit her last job in 2000 to work with Gregg full time.
They needed a business name and used: Big Blue Productions
Big Blue was the name of the house they lived in. The landlord had placed a large plaque by the front door that read "Big Blue".
This name worked until the internet became a thing. Seemed this name was already being used by a few different entities.
A new name was needed for a website.
People already recognized Gregg as that chicken guy, so the word chicken seemed important. Printing alone in the basement at the time the internet was taking off, we felt hidden away from the public.
After much deliberation, the name: Phantom Chicken was hatched.
In 2002 the roast chicken was retired and the current logo was created.
Hand printing t-shirts since 1995.
Helping you by helping Gregg and Gail.
Client consultation for design and apparel choices.