Local entrepreneur finds ways to grow tee-shirt business

Logan Wallace didn’t always think he’d follow his passion and wind up an entrepreneur. In fact, after graduating from Xavier University with a degree in communications and a minor in arts, he worked as a wine rep in both Cincinnati and California.

But grapes just weren’t his passion, so Wallace moonlighted as an artist, launching a small t-shirt company he called Alternative Motive.

“I think a lot of people, including myself art afraid of art,” says Wallace, 32, whose business morphed into City State Tees as it grew. “Your typical art is expensive and goes on a wall where not many people see. I see my shirts as art that people can show their pride for Cincinnati while they wear [them].”

After getting his shirts into shops around town and having his designs featured on MTV, Wallace found that his top-sellers were all Cincinnati-focused. His best-seller? A t-shirt with white dots in the shape of Ohio, and a colored dot in the bottom left corner, representing Cincinnati.

The popularity of the Cincinnati shirt inspired Wallace, who grew up in Milford and now lives in Mt. Washington, to create similar shirts for different cities. He began researching ways to streamline his business and discovered the German-based Spread Shirt. Spread Shirt provides Wallace, and other apparel vendors, with customer service, printing service and an online sales platform to help ease the process of producing large quantities of shirts.

After settling on Spread Shirt, Wallace launched City State Tees just three months ago. Using the time he saves by using Spread Shirt gives Wallace more time to design. He plans on creating a new design each week. As a stay-at-home father and self-employed artist, Wallace finds pleasure in his passion for art, his city and using his own power to forge a sustainable business.

“My plan is to tackle every major city in the US,” Wallace says. “It makes my day every time I see someone wearing something I made.”

By Evan Wallis
Enjoy this story? Sign up for free solutions-based reporting in your inbox each week.