Milton Resident's Apparel Company Supplies Custom Attire for All Occasions

Chances are, living in Milton, you've seen Frank Susi's work. The owner and artist behind Susi Art, 78 Quincy Avenue, Braintree, has supplied custom made apparel for road races, sports teams and fundraisers among other things, since he started his freelance graphic art business out his Milton home in 2000 and even more since he opened his Braintree storefront two years ago.

At the Landing location, Susi Art has expanded with a retail space and in-house printing. The retail area has allowed Susi to create some parody shirts that have taken off in popularity. He's sold over 300 "Creep" shirts, which is fashioned to mimic the "Jeep" logo.

"We have a lot of fun shirts, satire, pop art," said Susi, who added he creates seasonal lines of shirts, including St. Patrick's Day designs last month.

Moving from his Milton home to Braintree, has allowed him to created a more formal partnership with Lenny Collins, a Braintree resident who has been doing printing since 1984.

Collins' domain is on the second floor of the Quincy Avenue facility, above the offices and retail space. There he has a small screen printing set up where he manually prints shirts for small or complicated orders. In an adjoining room sits the large automated screen printing machine, which can turn out 800 shirts in an hour.

The custom jobs account for about 65 percent of Susi Art's business, according the Michael Minihane, a longtime friend of Susi from Milton who has been handling sales and marketing for the company for the past year.

If a customer wants something printed they can contact Susi at the store, via email, on the phone, or on the redesigned susiart.com, which has a new e-commerce format. Susi can either design the shirt or take an existing logo and refine it for the product.

The business has built a strong, word-of-mouth following that has lead to a solid repeat customer base. The storefront and new website have just added to the visibility of Susi Art, which recently hired a new designer to work alongside the owner.

"It's nice to be a part of it and see the growth," Minihane said of the business.

To learn more about Susi Art, visit susiart.com, call 781-817-6561, or stop by the store at 78 Quincy Avenue, Braintree.