Proper Printshop!

Why is it so damn cool????!!!

What makes this the most popular print shop in El Paso? Is it the local artists, bands that play there, vegan cooking classes, patches, shirts, posters, and live printing? Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! All of the above! The place is full original El Paso apparel as well as humorous stuff that that people request! I enjoyed staring at shirts with Charlie Sheen on there as well as  cat shirts. If anyone knows, I love myself a funny t-shirt.  I had the honor to talk to the masterminds behind this place, JJ and Alan, and they provided great insight about the place. 
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1. Hey guys. So when did Proper start and what is the purpose behind it?
JJ: "When we started, we both had separate businesses. We opened in September of 2011, since then we have both started off by putting stupid stuff on shirts and remade enough people laugh that we were able to keep putting stupid stuff on shirts. We've been open 5 years. I started Proper with two other people almost as a hobby and soon they had to leave to attend "adult responsibilities." Alan and I decided to combine efforts and we have been doing this together for about 3 years." 

2. So, why a print shop? Why shirts and not something else?
Alan: "For me personally, I think it is interesting that you can communicate with someone without ever talking and they can tell a lot about a person by what they are wearing. That's the cool thing about making t-shirts, at least for me."
JJ: "When we started screen printing, we were big fans of Andy Warhol. We started messing around with the printing and soon we were printing for events and realized we had beer money for the weekends. It was by accident that this happened."

3. What is Proper Printshop?! Especially for someone who is not familiar with it.
JJ: "We are a print shop so we do screen printing, but we are also a creative space. We started a project last year called Art in Vivo and we had artists from El Paso, Juarez,  and Las Cruces and we printed their work every Thursday for a whole year for the series. We got grant funding to take this work outside of the region. The first Sunday of every mont we have vegan cooking classes and Eduardo is phenomenal. It is a free class and anyone is welcome. "
Alan: "These events were live. People could bring their family and friends and learn how to do it if they had not done it before. It's a lot of community engagement."
JJ: "We use this place as a venue for bands as well and we do this thing called Shirts for Charity. We do live printing for shirts or posters for non-profits and help them raise money. We've had several non-profits"
Alan: "Yes, we are a print shop, but we want to get the community involved. "

4. So, what is the idea behind having your products at whole foods?
JJ: "We have our own line of work on the side, but our main bread and butter of this place is custom work. We have a silly line of shirts and Whole Foods likes to engage with local vendors and they reached out to us. It's great cause people get to learn more about us will grocery shopping."

5. Is there a favorite design you guys like the best?
Alan: "Most of the time we wear blank shirts. We print for people yet, 95% of the time we don't have anything on our shirts. Don't wanna be braggadocios. As far as design goes the NO MAMES WAY is my favorite It is universal and not only pertaining to El Paso."
JJ: "It's like when bands hate playing their favorite hits because they have played them so much." 
 
On a side note.......
Alan: "We are lucky to have Pilo from Jellyfish Collective. We are lucky to have him as an in-house designer. He is the artistic one. We are still doing Art in Vivo this year and we are actually opening a boutique inside the New Art lofts downtown." 

Also.....
They might be big in Japan. 

​ P.S. They have a gun to shoot shirts from. Very exciting times my friends.

If you have not been to the Proper Print Shop  go check them out and their website for more information is properprintshop.com​.