Getting to know Adam and Alyssa
Some print shops start with a clean business plan.
Bad Rego Screenprinting started with art school, Tinder, a garage, second-hand equipment, and the sale of some beloved Hondas.
For Adam and Alyssa, screen printing was always connected to making. Both came through art backgrounds, learning print processes through their studies before finding their way into garment printing, reclaim, shop-floor work, and eventually running their own operation.
Bad Rego officially started in 2023 with a cheap 4 station carousel, an oven from Marketplace, and a setup that was far from perfect.
But that didn’t stop them from taking on work that pushed the limits of what their equipment could do.
From oversized, over-the-seam prints to zip hoodies and polyester basketball shorts, their early projects proved something important: with enough time, consideration, and problem solving, they could make it work.
In this Behind The Mesh feature, we get to know Adam and Alyssa from Bad Rego Screenprinting, the story behind their garage-built shop, and why learning the business side has been just as important as learning the craft.
Let’s dive in.
Follow Adam & Alyssa on:
Website: https://shorturl.at/ficDN
Instagram: @badrego_screenprinting
About Adam & Alyssa
List 3 things about yourself – fun facts, hobbies, pets or interests
- We have 5 Star google review shop cat – Lil Fish (& Chester)
- We both studied Art.
- We met on Tinder, started a screen printing business and never looked back.
Describe your screen printing journey. How and when did you get started and what has been your biggest learning experience?
We both learnt screen printing in our Arts degrees. Adam Studied Print making & Drawing and Alyssa studied Painting.
Adam: I started garment printing during uni, printing small runs of T-shirts for my brand at the time with a single board set-up and a heat gun. When I moved to Melbourne in 2013 I faked my way into a full time screen printing gig in which I was thrown in the deep end learning on an automatic press.
Over the following 10 years I worked for several shops across Melbourne before deciding I didn’t want to work for the man anymore. I started Bad Rego in my garage In 2023. The sales of some beloved Honda’s financed the equipment (the cheapest 4 station carousel and oven available on marketplace).
Alyssa: I also learnt screen printing in Art school. When I finished my degree I needed work and the shop Adam was occasionally printing for needed a screen cleaner, so he put in a good word for me. I was previously working on large scale CMYK prints as part of my grad show paintings in which I was exposing and stripping hella screens.
I was too particular for the reclaim job but they kept me around as a shop hand for the next 2 years. I learnt a lot about garment printing and all the variables in this time. Maybe 6 months into Adam starting Bad Rego he was done with the admin side of things so I stepped in – we never planned for me to get as involved but here we are.
Our biggest learning experience has probably been on the business side of things. There’s been a lot of learning as we go -it doesn’t come as naturally to us as working on the floor.
Tell us about your proudest screen printing project. What made it special and what did you learn from it?
That’s a hard one – we have many.
In the early days when we still printed out of the garage on our cheap 4 x 4 carousel, we achieved some crazy results in hindsight. It was a challenge going from well equipped, established set-ups to the rudimentary hell scape we started out with in the shed.
Maybe one of our most notable is an Acopia T-shirt we printed on our first cheap 4 x4 set-up. We made our first custom board for this graphic – A jumbo, 3 colour, over the seam print that lay over the neck and one sleeve.
Another one of our favourites was also during the garage phase, for one of our fav clients ‘Ja’. Featuring a 2 colour, over the pocket print on either side of a zip hood.
The last to note is the ‘Slam Ross’ Gabber shorts printed on polyester basketball shorts- featuring 3 placements, most notably a large, over the seam, poly print over the back of the shorts.
I think our biggest takeaways from these projects was that we could pull it off with some consideration and time.
Industry
What are your thoughts on the current trends in screen printing? Do you see any emerging styles or techniques that excite you?
I’m not sure that this is necessarily new, but over sized, over the seam printing is definitely something people are after more and more. Creatives want to do something outside the box as opposed to traditional print sizes and placements. This is something we like to cater to as much as possible and hope to expand on the possibilities even more in the future.
What role does the online community play in your screen printing practice? How do you connect with other printers and share knowledge?
Mainly having an online community has facilitated reaching new clients. Besides word of mouth, our Instagram is our main avenue for reaching customers at the moment.
We follow a lot of local and international print shops. It’s nice to see what other shops are doing and how they’re doing it – it can definitely help inspire new techniques or ways of working.
Online spaces are a great tool to connect and ask other people in the industry questions – online Facebook groups are pretty good for knowledge sharing.
Shop Floor
What is your most treasured product or piece of equipment on the floor that has made your life easier as a printer? Why?
Our new second hand Reservior engineering oven that has been freshly serviced runs like a dream. After having our last oven from the start, we have finally upgraded which has been great for production.
What is on your wish list for your shop floor this year?
It was the oven but now that’s ticked off we would love a larger flash. Our clients love an oversized print, so this would definitely make our lives a lot easier.
Advice
What advice would you give to aspiring screen printers? What are the essential skills and qualities for success in this field?
In general we would probably advise to learn the ins and outs, get experience and build from that wihin your means. Screen printing is a lot more techy then it seems from the outside so I would start with the A-Z’s. I was very humbled by something someone said to me at my first screen printing job -“everyone can screenprint, but its not easy to sceenprint well’. I get it now. There’s much more to be learnt then I knew then.
For us we could have definitely bennefitted from some financial backing and business basics to start. Experinace will get you a long way but running a business is a whole different world we’ve had to navigate from ground zero.
Bonus
Share a funny or unexpected mishap you’ve encountered while screen printing.
I once exposed and printed a graphic for a friends sample run upside down. It was a more abstract font and my dyslexic brain didn’t pick up on it at all. His such a nice guy he sent me a message saying ‘I love the samples but are they supposed to be upside down?’ lol. Thankfully it was a sample run for a friend.
What’s your go-to playlist for a productive printing session?
The shop floor is Adams world and his music taste is very broad. You’ll get anything from Angela Windbush to Gucci Mane to The Cure, techno, memphis rap,abstract electronic music, Jazz FM- you might even get some classical FM. He bounces between the retro radio, vinyl player and bluetooth speaker most days.
Conclusion
Bad Rego’s story is a reminder that screen printing rarely begins with the perfect setup.
For Adam and Alyssa, it started with art school, second-hand gear, a garage, and the willingness to work through what they didn’t yet know. The equipment wasn’t ideal. The business side didn’t come naturally. The jobs they took on often pushed beyond what their setup was built for.
But that’s where the shape of the business started to form.
Through oversized placements, over-the-seam prints, long learning curves, and plenty of problem solving, Bad Rego has become a shop built on resourcefulness as much as skill. Their journey shows that screen printing is not just about getting ink onto fabric — it’s about understanding the variables, respecting the process, and learning how to turn creative ideas into something that can actually be produced.
And maybe that’s what makes shops like Bad Rego worth paying attention to.
They’re not trying to make screen printing look effortless. They’re showing what it actually takes: the testing, the mistakes, the awkward setups, the late problem solving, and the quiet confidence that comes from pulling off jobs that once felt out of reach.
Because while anyone can screen print, doing it well takes patience, experience, and a willingness to keep learning.
That’s what sits behind the mesh.
