Hip Hues, owned by Sondra Noble and Tracy Dunn, is a Nashville based company that focuses on custom screen-printing. They do everything from t-shirts to canvas prints to drink cozies. We’re excited Hip Hues will be on hand at this year’s Governor’s Conference on Economic and Community Development Oct. 13-14 showcasing their skills and making screen printed t-shirts for attendees.
Sondra Noble is originally from Ohio and moved to Nashville in 2004 to attend Vanderbilt University. Sondra has lived in Nashville on and off since and has grown to love Music City’s uniqueness during her time living here. I sat down with Sondra to discuss the growing success of Hip Hues and her love of all things Nashville.
How did you come up with the idea for Hip Hues?
Hip Hues is the brainchild of me and my business partner and sister Tracy Dunn. Tracy is a serial hobbyist. She brews beer, quilts and sews her own clothes. She picked up screen-printing one summer when she was living in Ohio and taught herself how to do it. She was making these amazing canvas art prints and selling them in coffee shops there. I said to myself that is so neat! I thought that I would want to learn how to do that and that people in Nashville would love that kind of thing.
Nashville is a fun, growing, young, unique and artsy city. Even people who aren’t artsy appreciate it. So, I got Tracy to move down here and start this company with me. We decided to start two components, which we still offer. The two components are BYOB workshops and private events. We initially thought that the BYOB workshops would be where we would have our business but we found in our first year that that’s not exactly what Nashville wanted. Nashville is a city of events and wants cool, unique things at their events. Screen-printing is artistic, it’s fun and it’s fast.
How long has Hip Hues been a successful business?
We kind of switched focus and started on the event side of things a little less than two years ago. We have had most of our growth once we moved into our new studio. We now work in a much larger studio and can host private events in our studio, up to 30 people. That’s made the biggest difference. This year we transitioned into a new market of corporate conventions and University markets. This year we’ve seen the most growth yet.
