The Challenge:
Tactive has been a longtime supporter of Indy Pride events, and we’re always up for an excuse to get together with the people who make Indianapolis a more colorful place. So, as summer wrapped up, Indy Pride brought its 2026 sponsors, partners, and supporters together at one of our favorite places: our production and fulfillment facility on Harding Street.
It was a chance to celebrate a successful Pride season, give supporters a look at what their partnership helped make possible, and kick off the next season of building support for the work ahead.
Of course, a celebration like this calls for more than just a PowerPoint presentation. So we turned our apparel decoration capabilities into an interactive event experience, giving every guest the chance to make a limited-edition Indy Pride T-shirt of their own. We wanted to give Indy Pride’s guests an experience as bright, colorful, and memorable as Pride itself.
That meant creating a design that would be fun to make, fun to wear, and completely unique for every guest who stepped up to the press.
The Solution:
The design started with a little nostalgia. Jen Carruthers, Executive Director of Indy Pride, pointed Tactive’s art team toward the vibrant, rainbow-filled aesthetic of the 80’s and 90’s – think bold gradients, dolphins, and Trapper Keepers.
But bringing all those colors to life on a t-shirt called for a little creative thinking. Typically, each color in a screen-printed design gets its own screen and is printed separately. For this design, we wanted the colors to blend together, so we tried something a little different: split-fount printing.
Instead of loading the screen with one ink color at a time, we placed four distinct colors side by side. As the squeegee pulled the ink across the mesh, the colors naturally met and blended together, creating a gradient effect in a single print. Since the colors blend a little differently with every pull, every shirt came out a little different. Pretty neat!
The screen printing was just one part of the evening. We opened up the lobby of our Harding Street building to host the full event, giving guests a chance to mingle, hear from Indy Pride leadership, and get excited for another year of Pride in 2027. Turns out, a production facility makes a pretty great party venue… at least, when Tactive’s your host.
Photos by Nick Cagle.
