Our History

For Josh, owner and founder of J.Carroll, designing great logo wear has been a lifelong passion. “I printed my first T-shirt in an art class in Palm Desert when I was 15,” Josh recalls. He printed 15 T-shirts and sold them to fellow high school students and “at that point the light went on,” he said. Josh discovered that he was able to use his love of art to create things that people liked and wanted – and wore. That was the beginning of the business now known as J.Carroll.

Before long Josh became known as “the shirt guy” – first in high school and then in college at Cal Poly. From the very beginning Josh’s business grew by word of mouth. “We kept getting new customers because people saw that we worked really hard to make their project easy for them,” he said. “I think that same holds true today...we work hard to make the process of getting great quality, well-designed logo’d garments easy and enjoyable. I think that’s why the majority of our customers are repeat customers.”

In his third year as a Graphics Communications major at Cal Poly, Josh was forced to grow his business to the next level. “I was printing out of my garage back home and on the back patio of my college apartment,” he recalls. “But it got to the point that my equipment would no longer fit in my apartment. I had so much business coming in that I had to find commercial space so I could grow to keep up.”

In February of 1994, The J.Carroll Corporation (Josh’s full name is Joshua Carroll Jacobson) was formed. With an initial investment from his father, Josh signed his life away (so it seemed) on a 6-month commercial lease. “I was 20 years old, and going to college full time. I knew I could do it, but just didn’t know how. All of a sudden, I had some real overhead, with real equipment payments and financial obligations. It was pretty daunting. At the same time, I had this façade that legitimized my business. I was no longer this kid making shirts in his apartment, I was a real part of the business community, and the business blossomed.”

In 1998 Josh started looking for property that would allow him to build his own facility to accommodate his growth. He found a great location near Tank Farm Road and South Higuera. Construction soon began, and in 1999 the business was able to move into the new J.Carroll building at 113 Cross Street.

At first the jump to the new building was a challenging one. “We moved from 1,400 square feet to 7,000 square feet,” he said. “It took us a little while to grow into our new digs.” However, as word of the J.Carroll quality and service spread through more and more loyal customers, the business continued to grow.

Since then, the company purchased the adjacent building, and now occupy a total of 15,000 square feet.

"Our goal is to keep raising the bar. The premise of great customer service remains the same, but the process needs to keep evolving...and it will."