Kuya (KOO-yah) is often translated from Tagalog as “older brother”, but most filipinos don’t use it to differentiate between the nuclear and extended family. So your brother is your kuya, but your cousins are your kuyas too, so is your mom’s friend’s son.
Rolling pre-order
KPC’s printing is all done in-house and by one-guy (Kuya Nico). To make things easier for us here at KPC we do a rolling pre-order that resets at the beginning of every month. In practice this looks like this: Nico collects up all the orders from the month on the 30th or 31st. From there he orders the blanks, prints your shirt, and sends it out to you! This process ensures that I have time to go scout out other artists, do general shop maintenance, and not work sixty hours a week like the first time I tried this whole thing out. Here at KPC we’re not trying to print shirts just to print them, we know that a lot of clothing ends up in the landfill, and we’re not just trying to send T-shirts into the void. Instead, we want to be intentional, and know that every shirt we print is specifically wanted. The rolling pre-order does mean that our ship times are longer than most shops’. If you order right at the beginning of the month your shirt may take 5 weeks. But overall, it’s a better balance.
About the shop
Kuya Print Co. is run by Nico Sardina. First kicked off as a small print-to-order shop in 2022, KPC has come back in 2024 to bring you shirts from artists we love. We’re located at 900 W 50th St, Minneapolis MN, we have wild hours that are just determined by whether or not we want to be there, but you should come visit us.
Thanks for your support!