Our story
Two friends, one print shop, no shortcuts
How it started
Deshawn Cole and Jonah Ruiz met folding shirts on the night shift at a screen-print shop in Deep Ellum. Deshawn had been sketching graphics on napkins for years. Jonah knew how to get a design onto fabric without wasting a single sheet of mesh. In 2022 they pooled a few hundred dollars, rented press time on off hours, and printed forty tees under the name Volt & Thread.
Those forty tees sold out of the trunk of Jonah’s car at a Bishop Arts pop-up in a single afternoon. They have never printed more than one run of anything since. Every drop still starts the same way: a sketch, a sample, and a hard stop once the fabric runs out.
Still printed at Deep Ellum Print Co
Every Volt & Thread piece is still screened at the same Deep Ellum shop where Deshawn and Jonah met. The press operators know the brand by name, and they are the first people to see a design before it ever reaches a photo shoot.
That partnership is why we can only ever print one run per design. The shop has one press slot reserved for us each month. When it is booked, it is booked.