Southern Cross Press is a printing company that was created out of necessity by its owner, tattooist Jeff Ensminger. Jeff began tattooing almost two decades ago, making a name for himself quickly by developing a unique, instantly recognizable style. Jeff’s tattoos have the nuances of fine art, while having the strengths and sensibilities of classic American tattooing. Jeff took to traveling, tattooing at conventions and shops around the world, ergo creating relationships with artists and tattooists that heavily influenced his own unique creative process. After years of producing tattoos, Jeff began to delve into creating fine art, and in turn, needed to make prints of his work to sell on his travels. This was Jeff’s first foray into getting giclee fine art prints made, and the first time he recognized the need for tattooers’ involvement in the process.
As Jeff created more fine art to eventually be reproduced for sellable prints, he found that the process of actually getting the prints made by outside companies could be very difficult. Being a tattooer, he realized that the quality print making companies were primarily outside of the world of tattooing, thus dealing with a different clientele, and ultimately were not interested in the same needs that tattooers had in printing. He wondered why there wasn’t a fine art printing company that catered to the tattoo community. To try to solve this problem, Jeff bought his first wide format inkjet printer in 2007; with that he also purchased volumes of resources on the printing process and fine art reproduction. He began producing prints for his friends, including artist and tattooist Nick Baxter. Nick Baxter has a history in tattooing along with creating fine art, as well as the knowledge and understanding of what quality fine art prints should look like. This encouragement and support from such an integral friend in Jeff’s early printing process was pivotal in expanding his knowledge of print making further, growing into multiple avenues and platforms. After doing some research online and making a large monetary investment, Jeff had the makings of a tattooer focused printing company falling into place. As Jeff focused on printing, his wife Alexis gave invaluable contributions with book/print file editing, packaging/shipping, along with assisting in the actual printing process; and with her aid, Southern Cross Press was born.
Southern Cross Press, based out of Austin Texas, started operating in 2014 and is run by Jeff and Alexis Ensminger. Currently Southern Cross Press offers services that include large format printing/scanning, professional painting photography, archival giclee printing, banner printing, business cards, book printing/binding, sketchbooks, and risograph printing. Southern Cross Press’s goal is to provide tattooers with a one stop shop for all printing needs, along with helping guide them through the process of selecting which printing methods or projects will be right for them. A love for tattooing is what is at the root of Southern Cross Press, and with respect we want to give that love back to our tattooing community.
Bio written by Sean Herman
