File. Joe Ortinau is the owner of Ortinau Art in Pembrerville.
J.D. Pooley | Sentinel-Tribune
PEMBERVILLE — For many years, Ortinau Art has been creating T-shirt designs for the local community.
Located in Pemberville, Ortinau Art’s physical location has been open since 2015. Before that, the shop was run out the house of owner Joe Ortinau.
Before starting his own business, Ortinau worked as a graphic designer for other businesses. This eventually led him to learn about screen printing for T-shirts, which he said led him to start doing freelance work. Through that freelance work he was eventually able to open his own business.
“Nobody really tells you how much work is involved with getting a business, starting from nothing, and getting it up off the ground,” he said.
Despite the work, Ortinau said he never gave up and he believes that is why his business has become successful over the years.
Ortinau Art offers mostly screen printed T-shirts, but they have embroidery options as well.
No matter what they create, Ortinau said his goal is to make shirts and designs that people are proud to wear and will want to put on a hanger.
“We want to make every T-shirt that we print someone’s new favorite T-shirt, and we want them to love it so much that they feel like it deserves a spot in the closet on a hanger,” he said.
Now that the business has a physical location and is off the ground, Ortinau said he has been trying to get his business more involved with the community. So far, he said his involvement has consisted in helping with events in downtown Pemberville and helping local businesses stay alive during the pandemic.
“During the pandemic, we did ‘Support Where You Live’ campaign where we printed T-shirts for businesses that were closed and trying to help raise funds for them to keep their doors open,” he said.
Supporting the community is important to Ortinau, as are his customers. He said he often focuses on keeping good communication with his customers. If anything happens during the designing or printing process, he said he makes sure that his customers stay informed.
“If we bump into something along the way that might possibly slow us down, we’ll either make a phone call or shoot an email that gives people a heads up that, hey, this thing happened it might slow us a little bit down on the turnaround time,” he said.
Focusing on communication also means that Ortinau must send out lots of messages. He used to use a messaging service, but he said recently he has been trying to type out messages to people himself as he thinks it feels more personable and he believes customers prefer it this way.
Ortinau creates many of the designs himself, which he said involves lots of communication with customers. Every design is a little different, and he said he enjoys being able to create something that has its own unique message and makes the customer proud to wear it.
Ortinau Art is located at East Front St. They are open Monday-Friday from 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
