In 2010, I had just graduated college and was delaying adulthood by starting a hip-hop group called Anderson's Most Wanted. The music was outrageous and the lyrics were ridiculous, but it gave us an excuse to get all of our friends together in a crowded basement and act like Anderson, Indiana was the center of the universe.

While trying to design shirts for the band, I created a simple image that seemed to embody everything I had ever wanted to say about Indiana. It was bold, ambiguous, mildly controversial and didn't leave any impression other than Indiana. Just Indiana.

The design took off. The hip hop…not so much. On the floor of my bedroom, I started printing the state and six stripes on old tee shirts for friends. Somewhere along the way, the name United State of Indiana came up and I don’t think there will ever be a better mission statement for this whole project than those four words. The crew in Anderson started giving USI shirts to anyone and everyone who would wear them.

Pretty soon, I didn’t have the skill or time to print them all myself, so I started looking for a local printing team to help me out. What I found was The Art Press, an Indy-based screen printing tour de force that cared enough about quality, good design and local business to take my crazy idea to the next level. The first day I visited the Art Press shop, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had gone to college with the entire staff.

Over the past few years,
we've made these goals for USI:

1. Create high-quality products for people who love Indiana.

2. Support Indiana's artists and entrepreneurs by promoting their products and finding ways for them to help create ours.

3. Support a culture in Indiana that promotes local living, collaborative commerce and the celebration of commonalities, not differences.

So that's what we do everyday.

We hope you find something here that gets you excited about where you've come from and where you're going.

Keep it up,
Graham Brown
United State of Indiana

 

Contact USI.