Design, print, and the brands we run ourselves.

01 — THE STUDIO

A design studio that runs the whole job

Most of the industry splits in two. There are design firms that hand you a PDF and wish you luck at the printer, and there are print shops that will run whatever file you send without telling you it is going to look bad. Traxler Graphics exists in the gap: we design the thing and see it through production, which means the person choosing the ink knows why the logo was drawn that way.

That is not a marketing position. It is the practical reason our work comes out right — the presses belong to our production partners, but the handoff where jobs usually break stays in one pair of hands.

02 — WHO

Zachary Traxler

Twenty-plus years in design, print production and brand development. Zach quotes the job, designs the art, matches it to the right partner and checks the output. When you email the studio, that is who answers.

He also teaches — graphic design and print production at the career-technical level in Columbus, coaching students toward Adobe Certified Professional credentials. It is worth mentioning here for one reason: teaching a process to teenagers forces you to actually understand it, and that shows up in how clearly a quote gets explained.

03 — TRACK RECORD

Basement to 55,000 square feet

In 2010 Zach started Traxler Printing in the basement of his apartment. Over the next decade it grew into a 55,000-square-foot production facility in Columbus employing more than 35 Ohioans, and from $40,000 in first-year revenue to multimillion-dollar annual sales. All of it came from organic social media. The ad budget was $0.

• Print Excellence Awards, Graphic Media Alliance — silver medal, 2024, for the Pollination Gardens brand identity
• Business First Forty Under 40
• BBB Spark Award
• Columbus Alive! People to Watch
• Facebook Small Business Council — invited to join in 2018
• Adobe Certified Professional — Photoshop, Illustrator and Adobe Express

Zach closed Traxler Printing in 2020 and turned to teaching. Traxler Graphics is what came next: the same production standards, with Zach on every job. It is also why the studio helps clients past the print order — merch stores, websites and the growth playbook that built Traxler Printing.

04 — PROOF

We do not just print brands. We run three.

current fruitions — a design-led lifestyle brand owned and operated by the studio: identity, Shopify storefront, apparel production and content, all run by the studio.

Surf Ohio® — a family brand since 1978, reborn. We handle the apparel printing, merch, packaging and e-commerce that keep a 40+ year Ohio legacy moving.

Ten Dollar Tee — faith tees at ten dollars on heavyweight cotton, pressed to order in Ohio. A direct-to-consumer brand Zach co-founded and the studio runs.

Running retail brands changes the default. When you have to sell the shirt yourself, “good enough for a giveaway” stops being an acceptable standard — and your job gets the same partners, the same standard and the same eye.

05 — HOW PRODUCTION ACTUALLY WORKS

A studio with a production network

Most shops are cagey about this, so here it is plainly. Traxler Graphics does not own presses. Apparel — screen printing, DTF, embroidery and dye-sublimation — is produced through trusted decoration partners. Everything else is produced through specialist partners we have worked with for 10 to 20 years — offset and digital presses, wide format, die-cutting, bindery, packaging and structural work. Zach designs it, routes it and checks it.

That is a deliberate choice, and it is better for you in three ways:

• The right press, not the only press. A shop that owns one machine pushes every job onto it. We route each job to the press that genuinely suits the stock, the size and the finish.
• No single bottleneck. When one partner is stacked up, your job moves. A one-shop operation with a full schedule has nothing to offer you but a later date.
• Specialists, not generalists. The people running your foil-stamped cards run foil-stamped cards all day. Ten to twenty years of working together means we know exactly what each partner is best at — and what to keep away from them.

What does not change is who owns the job: one contact, one standard, one person checking the output before it reaches you.

Every job is overseen by a 20-year print hand regardless of which press it runs on. We will always tell you which is which.

06 — HOW WE WORK

Brief to delivery

• Brief. Tell us the project, quantity and deadline. We scope it fast — usually same business day.
• Design. Concepts and print-ready art from a 20-year design hand. A design review is free on every order.
• Proof. Nothing hits a press until you approve a proof. The approved proof is the reference for everything after.
• Produce. Run by the right partner on the right press, with a press check from Zach on jobs that need one.
• Deliver. Packed, shipped, or ready for pickup by appointment — on time.

07 — STUDIO FAQ

About the studio