From today’s b, the paper

Far from its trendy, sterile new boutique in Hampden is the unglamorous heart of SquidFire.

It is here, in an early-1900s warehouse near Greektown, in a gritty — and unheated — room overlooking railroad tracks, where company co-founders Jean-Baptiste Regnard and Kevin Sherry churn out masses of whimsical prints on a rainbow of American Apparel T-shirts.

SquidFire is a neon world populated by pirate cats and a crop duster trailing pink hearts. Using manual presses to silkscreen clothing, the friends create one-of-a-kind, defiantly non-mall looks.

The pair estimates that since founding SquidFire in 2004, they’ve sold nearly 75,000 T-shirts, which cost $15-$25 on squidfire.com. Most of the company’s success has come through online sales and DIY-art shows across the country. They also helm their own art shows in Baltimore, including a SquidFire Winter Art Mart that will feature 50 vendors Sunday afternoon at the Lyric Opera House.

Everyone from art students to Roland Park grandmas have been gobbling up their wares in the Hampden store (the old Atomic Books shop) they opened in September.

“There’s a scrappiness to Baltimore,” said Sherry, a Maryland Institute College of Art graduate from South Jersey. “We’re sandwiched between the capital of the country and a formidable city in Philadelphia, and the town fights for what’s our own artistically. That applies to us, too.”

Sherry, 26, who talks fast and screens shirts faster, is the artistic force of SquidFire, while Regnard, 29, is its astute businessman. It was Regnard who put up the initial investment of more than $10,000 to start the company.

The pair met at a Baltimore coffee shop where they worked together for one day. Sherry, who wanted to be a comic artist and now also writes children’s books, is often working hard at the warehouse, while Regnard mans the Hampden store, organizes art marts and fields daily requests for orders. Regnard, a native of Falls Church, Va., used to sell shirts out of his 1989 silver Cadillac. SquidFire’s first bulk order: $500.

Since then, the company has weathered financial uncertainty (retailers’ orders are coming in later than usual this year), a sparse work crew (a handful of interns help) and even a four-hour stint in a holding cell at the U.S.-Canada border three years ago.

Returning from a trip to Montreal for an art mart, Regnard and Sherry were stopped by a U.S. border guard, who accused them of textile fraud — illegally importing apparel.

“They X-rayed our car and then looked at us and said, ‘Do you have a gun?’” Regnard said. “I was like, ‘Are you kidding me? I’m wearing a T-shirt with an effing squirrel on it!’”

Post-border jail experience, the rise of SquidFire coincided with the rise of DIY, nationwide and in Baltimore. In true DIY fashion, SquidFire’s creations typify whimsy, a look coveted by the 100 stores internationally that carry SquidFire.

On Monday in the warehouse, breath visible as they hustled, Regnard and Sherry were pumping out the latest T-shirt. Because of the recent popularity of a shirt emblazoned with a unicorn and a chupacabra, they’ve designed a “natural history” shirt, featuring a skeletal brontosaurus and a mammoth.

It seems more apt in a Smithsonian gift shop than on a hipster’s chest. But it’s still pure SquidFire.

“We never know what will be popular,” said Regnard. “But we’ll keep making them.”

Jordan Bartel is assistant editor at b. E-mail him at jordan@bthesite.com

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.