By: Amanda Kaplowitz ’19 and Layla Wolfsky ’19

Many people think of a tight corner in a laundry room as nothing more than a place to throw dirty clothes, a dark basement as simply a place used to store unwanted clutter.
But for Sophia Livecchi ’17, Matteo Broccolo ’17 and Elizabeth Rhoads ’17, these arbitrary places around the house serve a dual purpose: they are also studios for designing custom, high-quality t-shirts.
The basement serves as Livecchi and Broccolo’s location for their business, Underdog Designs, and the laundry room meets Rhoads’ needs to run her business, Iron Woman Designs. While both businesses sell unique t-shirts, they differ in design techniques: Livecchi and Broccolo use an ink and screen printing process to print drawings on shirts, while Rhoads uses transfer paper to iron on designs.
Colleen Brockwell ’17 purchased an Underdog Designs, “Princess and the Pea” t-shirt, designed by Livecchi and Broccolo. “They come in extremely nice quality tees, and the print is set on and made really well,” Brockwell said.
Both businesses provide options for customers, who can direct message the companies’ Instagram accounts to purchase a shirt for $20-25 printed with either the customer’s personal design, or with a drawing made by one of the designers. However, the entrepreneurs agree that they prefer creating their own designs rather than just printing one provided to them.
“I feel like [printing designs provided by the buyer] shows nothing about our artistic ability, and just shows we can print shirts,” Broccolo said.
Additionally, the business owners feel a sense of accomplishment when their personal designs are worn. “It’s really fun to see people that you don’t know that well wearing your shirts,” Rhoads said.
Although seeing the final product can be rewarding, there is a lot of behind the scenes work required, and the process to create each shirt demands patience and persistence. “I think it’s funny to think that […] I give [a shirt] to them, but they’re not seeing what goes into it,” Rhoads said.
Broccolo described the complicated printing process he and Livecchi use, which requires a photo emulsion technique. “Once [the screen] is covered and dry, you put a positive of a picture on it so it’s just black outlines. Then, you put a strong light on it for about seven minutes,” Broccolo explained. “After, you wash off the screen and the black lines become clear. Then, we put ink on it and use a squeegee to pass the color over.”
A shirt from Broccolo and Livecchi can take up to four hours to create, and a custom design from Rhoads usually involves setting aside three hours. According to the designers, finding this time to complete their orders can be difficult, especially since each senior has an additional after-school job.
Rhoads, Livecchi and Broccolo all hope to continue and expand their businesses after high school and throughout college. “I was thinking of maybe going to a couple of stores,” Livecchi said, “and saying, ‘These are my shirts. Would you like to buy a bulk of them?’ and see what happens.”