Axis Apparel signage overlooking the production floor. This is Axis Apparel’s largest production space yet, providing enough space for another press to be added in the future.

Axis Apparel owner, Logan Keith, hanging out at company’s factory space. The Indiana University graduate started the printing and design business in 2011 and has been keeping busy ever since.

Founder of Axis Apparel, Logan Keith, and full-time employee Austin Vuke, play a quick round of ping pong before getting started on the day’s job. Keith enjoys a laidback work atmosphere, balancing fun with productivity.

The Axis Apparel office spaces overlook the production space.

Founder of Axis Apparel, Logan Keith, aligns transparencies of a client’s design on the lightbox. The transparencies are then burned into a screen covered in emulsion. This is one of the first steps of the screen production process.

Founder of Axis Apparel, Logan Keith, power washes the emulsion on the screen, revealing the design that can then be printed onto clothing. Logan’s screen printing experience is credited partially to his father, who is a screen printer in Spencer, Indiana.

Full-time Axis employee, Josh B., applies more ink to the screen so the press can imprint a solid layer.

Founder of Axis Apparel, Logan Keith, and full-time employee Austin Vuke, talk amongst themselves while the press is printing.

The design being printed for local tattoo shop, Time and Tide Tattoo, is set up on the press, having just been ran with a layer of white ink. Axis Apparel prints merchandise for both local and nationally recognized organizations.

A batch of shirts rolls through the dryer.

Founder of Axis Apparel, Logan Keith, and two full-time employees, Austin Vuke and Josh B. check the quality of the first shirt through the dryer for the day’s job. Since Axis’ inception, Logan has afforded to bring on full-time production employees to be part of the Axis team.

A table is set out with Axis Apparel stickers, business cards and other miscellaneous merchandise.

The clacking of ping-pong balls reverberates back and forth through the open factory space of Axis Apparel. Amongst the printing press, and industrial dryer lies skateboards, scooters, a pool table, and other sources of downtime entertainment. Walking into the business, you might think that all people do here is goof off. Don’t let the atmosphere fool you.

Axis Apparel isn’t your average printing and design company. Located in Bloomington, Indiana, Axis has created designs and merchandise for companies like Upland Brewing, and Hopscotch Coffee, all the way to Cartoon Network, Southern Comfort and Third Man Records (Jack White’s record label). The owner, Logan Keith, is a Kelley School graduate and self-made business owner who started Axis as an official company in 2011. While playing in a full-time band, he began printing the merchandise for the group. This catalyzed Logan to later start printing the merchandise for other bands from around the Midwest. In 2018, Axis Apparel is a full-fledged venture that has been growing steadily since its inception. With its development, the business now focuses primarily on bulk orders to local and national businesses. Today, Axis is printing a basic, single-color design for Time and Tide Tattoo, a tattoo shop located in downtown Bloomington.

Axis Apparel’s youthful brand boasts high quality merchandise and down-to-earth customer service, treating every client with care and respect.

“We take the time and effort to actually go to our clients. Not very many people travel seven hours just to meet with a client for a half-hour. We do that cause we like to show that we’re really dedicated,” said Keith.

Axis’ specialty is their water based printing methods. This method of screen-printing allows the ink to become a part of the fabric, avoiding the plastic-like feel of plastisol-based ink.

“The inks we use are softer, more environmentally friendly, but they’re really hard to work with so a lot of people don’t,” said Keith, “we’ve just been dedicated to making sure we’re the best at that.”

For promotional purposes, Axis periodically sends out what they call “beer boxes” that contain samples of stickers, pins, and other material designed to showcase what Axis can do for different brewing company’s brand.

“That’s been good for us, we picked up some bigger accounts with those like Founders and Bells,” said Keith.

A typical day at Axis varies from job to job. Some days there can be a single client’s worth of work; others may involve large print jobs for several clients. In terms of the future of the company, Keith plans to keep the business close-knit.

“We’re not currently looking to branch out, just to be better at what we currently do,” said Keith, “the only long term thing I have in mind that I want to do that we aren’t currently doing is adding more presses and more clients. Ideally it will be just a slightly bigger version of what we’re doing now so we can still skate, play ping pong, hang out and print shirts.”

Axis seems to have struck a balance between business and pleasure, maintaining the work ethic to run a productive company while not losing sight of the big picture. After all, what you do matters, so should your apparel.