Greenville’s Dapper Ink boosts conservation efforts through The Landmark Project

Successful entrepreneurs understand there’s a magical type of synergy that happens when you combine a solid business plan with passion.

For Greenville-based Dapper Ink founders Jen and Matt Moreau, their company’s success has also enjoyed the added ingredients of good timing and tapping into the nationwide devotion to America’s national parks and public lands.

The enterprise they bootstrapped up from a modest start as a home-based custom screen printing business less than 20 years ago has achieved lasting and widespread impacts. The Landmark Project, which itself started as a side quest to find a meaningful artistic outlet, has become a nationally cherished outdoor brand.

‘Part of a wave’

Located in a nondescript industrial building on Shaw Street near the intersection of Poinsett Highway and Rutherford Road close to downtown Greenville, Dapper Ink has grown considerably since its beginnings during the height of 2008’s Great Recession.

Screen printing custom T-shirts began as something of a side hustle while the Moreaus looked at a range of career options that proved to be not very promising. With the help of friends, the couple took on bigger and bigger jobs. In 2010, they opened Dapper Ink’s first brick-and-mortar location in Stone’s Point shopping center.

As Matt Moreau explained, this was about the same time The Community Tap opened in the same shopping center and just as Greenville was gaining momentum as a vibrant, growing community.

“We felt like we were part of a wave,” he said. “It was being part of a wave of new creative businesses.”

The company rode that wave of steady growth and became the go-to source for custom local merch. Dapper Ink handles the city of Greenville’s custom printing needs and has supplied the shirts that commemorate the city’s marquee events and festivals such as Artisphere and Fall for Greenville.

As rewarding as that growth and success were, Matt Moreau said he wanted a new creative outlet that could also provide a vehicle for celebrating places he and Jen and their employees loved deeply: The state parks that stretch across the Upstate of South Carolina like a crown.

This quest to counter the nascent stages of burnout and celebrate public gems like Jones Gap and Table Rock state parks gave birth to what became The Landmark Project.

Local vision, national impact

Photo provided by Dapper Ink/The Landmark Project

Like Dapper Ink, The Landmark Project started small and wasn’t expected to evolve into a whole new enterprise. But within a decade, it became a national phenomenon and iconic outdoor brand.

That meteoric rise was kindled with the decision to expand The Landmark Project’s offerings to celebrate some of the country’s iconic national parks as the National Park Service’s 100th anniversary approached in 2016, Jen Moreau said.

Through the impromptu efforts of a friend, who carried samples of the new national park shirts around to many of the parks themselves, interest grew to the point where the project received a level of attention that changed the entire trajectory.

A cold call from outdoor retail giant REI provided profound validation for the artistic vision behind The Landmark Project’s merchandise. Matt Moreau said the brand’s realistic depiction of iconic landscapes — for instance, mountains that are recognizable and not just clip-art triangles — stood out to REI at a time when there were few artist-owned outdoor companies.

“I think REI appreciated that about us and wanted to connect on a local level with their customers,” he said.

Jen Moreau added the national retailer was an excellent partner to help extend the project’s reach across the country because it doesn’t overextend its brands.

“They knew we had potential, and they knew that we could likely grow together,” she said.

Giving back

That growth has continued over the past decade and an integral part of it has been The Landmark Project’s commitment to conservation. As a 1% for the Planet-certified company, the project dedicates 1% of its total revenue to conservation efforts.

This commitment was baked into the project from the beginning and to date has generated $1.4 million for local and national conservation efforts, with $250,000 of that total generated in the first half of 2025.

National partners include the National Wildlife Federation, Leave No Trace, the National Forest Foundation and the U.S. Forest Service. Locally, the funding has benefited groups such as Friends of the Reedy River, Upstate Forever and Friends of Paris Mountain.

The Landmark project also generates royalties for the U.S. Forest Service as a licensee of Smokey Bear and has thus become an important partner in wildfire prevention efforts locally and nationally.

“Smokey Bear is such a big part of our story now that it’s hard to imagine Landmark without it,” Matt Moreau said. “And it just dovetails right into everything else we make.”

The commitment to protecting the natural world and celebrating the joys of being outdoors helps explain both the personal fulfillment of the Moreaus and their teams at Dapper Ink and The Landmark Project — and the growth and success of both companies.

“We love our jobs and the people we get to work with,” Jen Moreau said.

Who The Landmark Project helps

As an organization dedicated to preserving, protecting and promoting state and national parks, forests and other public lands, funding generated by the project benefits a range of conservation groups across the country, including: