Our Story

In 1999, getting custom t-shirts for your group was a genuinely frustrating experience. Screen printing shops had steep minimums, required multiple in-person visits, and charged extra for every color. If you wanted a dozen shirts for a family reunion or a handful for a school club, you were either out of luck or overpaying.

Three college friends — Marc Katz, Dave Christensen, and Mike Driscoll — thought that was wrong. Marc was stuck in a Wall Street job that, as he later put it, "didn't have a lot of heart." Mike was already tinkering with a way to put custom graphics on shirts online. Dave knew how to build it. Together, they imagined something simple: a place where anyone could design and order custom apparel without the headaches, without the minimums, and without leaving home.

They launched Custom Ink in March 2000 from a basement in McLean, Virginia. Marc slept on an air mattress to keep costs down. The small founding team built the Design Lab — an online tool that let anyone upload artwork, add text, and preview their creation before ordering. They hired real people to answer the phone when customers needed help. And they stood behind every order with a guarantee nobody else was offering.

For two decades, Custom Ink showed up for the moments that matter. Family reunions. School spirit weeks. Charity 5Ks. Bachelorette parties. Church groups. "Thanks, Custom Ink" became something we heard constantly — because we were genuinely helping people come together.

Then the world changed. The pandemic separated teams that had worked side by side for years. It put a new weight on what it means to feel connected — to a group, to a company, to a cause. And it clarified something we'd been quietly seeing for a while: our customers weren't just families and friends anymore. They were organizations trying to build belonging across distance. They needed branded tech accessories for remote onboarding kits. Premium drinkware for client appreciation. Gifts that actually reflected the quality of their brand. And they needed those things to be worth keeping — not something destined for the back of a drawer.

To ensure that Custom Ink was addressing the needs of these larger organizations, we acquired Swag.com in 2021, and Printfection (since rebranded as Swag Pro) in 2022. Each of these platforms deliver what power buyers at large scale and enterprise B2B customers need. 

In 2024, we welcomed new leadership and took a clear-eyed look at what people truly needed from us. We listened. We rebuilt. We expanded our catalog from the t-shirts and hoodies that built this company to thousands of products — apparel, accessories, hard goods, and more. We partnered with brands like Yeti, Patagonia, The North Face, and Nike, because we know that when you're outfitting your team, the tag is part of the message. We made it easy to try before you commit: order a single embroidered hat to test the fit, or samples of six different items before placing a full run. We kept real humans on the phone, because some decisions deserve a conversation.

What hasn't changed is the reason any of it matters. Whether you're ordering 12 shirts for a family reunion or outfitting a team spread across time zones, the goal is the same — helping people feel like they belong to something. Research consistently shows that a well-chosen, well-made piece of branded gear does exactly that. It's not marketing. It's a gesture. It says: you're part of this.

We've been making that gesture possible for 25 years. We're just able to make it in a lot more ways now.