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If you’ve started a business, one of the first things you do is create a logo that provides a visual element of your company’s identity. Then, you must get that brand out in the world for your potential customers to see.
That’s where Lisa Vargas and her team at Gear Up by Design comes in.
“Leveraging branding for your business, your school or your sports team is so important for recognition and remembrance,” said Vargas, who specializes in customized branded apparel. “But it’s not just branding, it is also important to portray a professional and polished look while feeling comfortable. This is not only for you personally but for your team, employees, and customers. We, at Gear Up, believe branded apparel is equivalent to investing in a walking billboard, only for a lot less than a real billboard, and while your personal look is important, you also want everyone to want to wear your branded gear. We work hard to differentiate our company with this belief and vision while exceeding expectations with excellence in service, value, and quality.
Vargas said most customers walk in with their logo(s) or need some help finalizing their look when they come to her shop at 7565 Norman Rockwell Blvd., Suite 130. Vargas’ team then helps clients decide what type of apparel and what decoration methods will meet their objectives. “One of the fun parts of this business is the enormous variety of apparel/accessory offerings we get to provide our customers,” Vargas says. “This allows us to be consultative helping to achieve what is important to each project such as using higher end brands like North Face, Under Amour, Carhartt or Spyder or staying in a more value-based budget but with well made, comfortable clothes. We also offer an enormous range of clothing types from tanks tops to corporate dress wear to winter apparel and even construction ANSI rated items.”
The other part of the conversation is how to embellish; Gear Up by Design’s decoration methods include direct to film (DTF) transfers, screen printing, specialty décor, and embroidery. “We have over 40+ combined years of experience in these realms,” says Vargas.
Another important key differentiator is Gear Up’s experience with fundraising. Schools, sports teams and corporate entities, including non-profits, often offer their branded items and hard goods for sale to help raise funds. For over a decade, Gear Up has provided custom online stores to assist with these kinds of projects, whether a one-time event or on-going. This offering eliminates entities having to guess and invest in inventories and/or collect and manager order info like names, sizes, money collection, sorting and distribution. Gear Up alleviates all that headache as well as money and storage space wasted on unused inventory.
Vargas tells the store of a PTA board member who recently called her and talked about the time-consuming process she goes through when offering spirit gear to parents and students. Vargas replied, “Let me propose an idea to you, what if I created an online pop-up store, you advertise it within the school, we do all the work, and then cut you a check from your fundraising totals?” The client agreed to try and afterwards said, “The amount of work you just took off of me is amazing. Everything was perfect. All the orders went out and I did not get a single phone call about issues or anything!”
Vargas started Gear Up by Design in 2014 as a home-based business, initially to print jerseys and spirit gear for her son’s baseball team. The business took up one bedroom in her house, then two bedrooms, then the dining room, the living room and that’s when Vargas decided it was time to get a retail location.
She found a space in a quaint retail complex, the Village of Centennial Springs, with a “Norman Rockwell” feel located at Farm/Tule Springs and signed a lease in 2018. Vargas loves the area as do her clients who often come to check out samples of the apparel and pick up orders.
“Every person that comes here mentions how it’s such a different looking property,” she said. “This center is so walkable with the restaurants, craft stores, a coffee shop, retail stores and a great park at the end of our street!”
Those interested can visit www.gearupbydesign.com or reach out at 702-857-7818 or [email protected].