About us...

Phantom Chicken is a small, manual screen printing and design studio run by Gregg and Gail Weiss. Two low-key eccentrics who met in the most unlikely yet typical way — shooting pool in a bar in Portland, Oregon in 1997.

Gregg brought to the table his BFA (in screen printing) and seven years of print brokering in NYC, plus three fresh years of solo screenprinting in his basement studio. Gail possessed a latent, hidden artistic talent that Gregg could sniff out and bring to the surface. Exposed to a new world of digitally generated design and graphics, Gail flourished creatively and was able to quit her last 'real' job in 2000, while on her way to becoming Gregg's prepress guru (and wife).

From 1995 to the present, Gregg has honed his craft of manual screen printing to razor sharpness (all the while building his forearms) and in tandem with Gail, they stand poised and ready for heavy exploitation.

What's up with the Bird?

When Gregg left NYC to come to Portland in 1993, he had in is possession a piece of film positive with THE Chicken on it. He took this film to his first job in P-town: mixing ink for a local (now defunct) screen print shop for large bus ads.

He used this chicken image on a screen for ink color testing. By the time the company went under and he was laid off, Gregg had many of these chicken test stickers which he used as business cards for his new basement business: Big Blue Productions, Uninc.

After years of doing local work, people on the street would walk up to him and say "Hey - You're that chicken guy... you print T-shirts". This is when he knew that he could never give up the chicken.

In 1999, after moving out of the house after which Big Blue Productions was named, and expanding to include Gail's graphic design work, they decided to change the name of the business. In the spring of 2002, Phantom Chicken was hatched.