It has been a lifelong dream of mine to run a successful business. It’s finally here! The opportunity I have long awaited since I first established my LLC back in 2016. Big Time Screen Printing is finally open for business. As we enter 2024, I have lofty goals for where this will take me, and what this will be. However, it all makes sense if I look back at how I got here.
I graduated from Columbia College Chicago in 2006 with a B.F.A. in Graphic Design. I moved to Michigan after college, and began work at various advertising agencies. I worked at BBDO in Troy and Doner Advertising in Southfield. It turned out I wasn’t as well suited to work for massive advertising agencies as I thought I would be in my head. I later found a small marketing firm, PL Marketing at the time, now Purple Lizard’s Promotions. I became their senior graphic designer, and also learned a lot in the field of sales and marketing. I learned so much from my boss, and was very successful at the young age of 24, but felt I had done all I could do there, and began to seek out my next challenge.
After three years with PL Marketing, I came upon a life-changing opportunity. In the summer of 2010, I applied for a job at Lakeland High School in White Lake, MI. I became their Graphic Arts and Photography teacher. I had never considered education before, but I longed for the opportunity to take back the creative control I had in college, and that I longed for in every position since. In education, I was able to teach how I wanted, and be creative in designing curriculum for my students. I soon became their yearbook advisor, and we went on to produce multiple nationally recognized yearbooks, and numerous award for various aspect of our yearbook and journalism. At Lakeland, I was able to revive a program that lost the graphic arts teacher it had since the school opened in the late 1970s.
In that effort, I revived all of the equipment they used to teach screen printing. It was a tough process to learn, but the students and I together fine-tuned and expanded our knowledge in screen printing. By the 2011-2012 school year, we were printing shirts for just about every building in the district. I remember vividly even printing shirts for 5k runs, U of M hospital’s “Otolaryngology” department, (the only reason I know what that word is), and many times we produced over 500 youth t-shirts for the elementary field days. We were printing homecoming shirts, senior class shirts, and various items for other clubs and sports. I discovered how much I just enjoyed making things.
I consistently worked on being a better screen printer while I had my classroom at Lakeland, and I even worked a summer for Underground printing in Ann Arbor, as a screen printer. I moved on from Lakeland High School in 2016 for an opportunity to teach Media Production at the William D. Ford Career/Technical Center in Westland, MI. These classes were 2.5-3 hours a day, and just two sessions per day. This allowed me to expand my curriculum and really dive deeper into more advanced areas of art and design.
Today, I am still in education, but as an administrator. I am the Director of Career/Technical Education and Early College Programs at Davison High School, in Davison, MI. I have a lot of experience in CTE and love the opportunity I have to work with the teachers, and support them in creating a lot of successful and valuable educational programs. I love my new role in education, and while I do need to be creative, I have found myself craving that opportunity to make “stuff” again.
In 2016, I started an LLC called, Big Time Screen Printing. I created the logo, and had started to take steps to getting it going, but life got busy, and acquiring equipment never panned out. However, Big Time has come back in a big way, and we are now ready for business. In 2023, we set up shop, and printed a lot of shirts, hoodies, koozies, and more! While we may be a relatively new business, we are not new to screen printing or design. We can create your vision from scratch and provide you with fantastic apparel designs of the highest quality.
As my family and I embark on this exciting journey with Big Time Screen Printing, we invite you to be a part of the process. Let us bring your ideas to life, collaborating with you to craft personalized and exceptional apparel designs. Whether you’re envisioning custom shirts for an event, branded merchandise for your business, or unique items for your organization, we’re here to turn your concepts into reality. Join us at Big Time Screen Printing, where your vision becomes our masterpiece. Contact us today, and let’s create something extraordinary together!
