Big Frog T-shirt franchise gives Mark Evans a chance to love his work and promote local artists

DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
taffet@dallasvoice.com
Mark Evans said that for 20 years, he “did the corporate thing,” spending much of that time overseas. But now, he’s followed his heart to Oak Cliff’s Bishop Arts District where he’s running his own customT-shirt business.
Evans said he got the bug to live abroad when he earned a Fulbright Scholarship and taught English in Austria. His bachelor’s degree was in German literature. But after teaching for awhile, he said, he decided it would be best to “move to the business side, if I ever thought of eating again.”
That’s when he got a job with a major corporation with offices around the world, moved to Paris and began his career in intercultural training.
Evans said he taught Americans ex-patriots about the culture they were moving to and how those cultural differences applied to business and the corporate world.
As an example, he said: “Hierarchy is more respected there than here.” If someone were to report their superior for an infraction of corporate policy or unethical behavior, that would be considered a cultural gaffe rather than an ethical issue. And chances are, the person reporting the problem would be fired rather than the person causing the problem.
Evans eventually returned to the U.S. to work in cultural training, developing clients like Disney, Sony, Proctor and Gamble and AT&T, and he’s been living in Dallas for the past five-and-a-half years.
“I was risk averse, but interested in being an entrepreneur,” he said, explaining his move to entrepreneurship. “I came across a podcast about starting online marketing.”
So he searched for six months for a business and came across Big Frog, a T-shirt store franchise. During his search, he also met a number of artists in the neighborhood.
Evans said he and his husband, Scott, weren’t particularly looking for a franchise when they found Big Frog. But the company would provide the equipment needed and a way for him to put together his idea of working with artists he’d met with his store.
Once he negotiated his franchise, Evans was ready to look for a location. The first spot he picked near Trinity Groves just didn’t work out after long negotiations. But the day that option fell through, he was in Bishop Arts, where the landlord of the space on Davis Street had just put up a for rent sign. Evans jumped at the chance.
Evans and his staff use a digital printer that sprays on the ink to print shirts there in the store. He also has the capacity to do traditional transfers for larger orders.
Big Frog has about 80 stores around the country, mostly in suburban locations. With Evans’ urban location, the franchisor allowed him to vary some store specifications to blend the historic building’s architectural features into the modern design used in most of the company’s stores.
But one idea kept recurring to Evans: He wanted to use his business to promote artists.
“People should be walking billboards for things they’re passionate about,” he said.
He said an artist he talked to was all for putting his art on a shirt, but didn’t want to do inventory control. So he knew the possibilities were there and started researching the competition. Other T-shirt shops put artists’ work on shirts, but mostly there were large minimums and long lead times.
With the equipment at Big Frog, there’s no minimum, and as soon as the artwork is uploaded to the computer, Evans or one of his employees can print the shirt on the spot.
Evans has another idea to promote local artists’ work and help artists find new ways of generating revenue. His store is at the end of his building and has a big, white wall facing the adjacent parking lot — one of the few unadorned walls in Bishop Arts. So he’s planning a contest for artists to submit proposals for painting the wall.
The winner gets to paint his or her mural on the wall. Shirts of the winning painting are part of the plan.
Evans says he’s thinking of a new contest and painting for the location every six months.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition October 13, 2017.