So much so he has spent 38 years printing designs on them.
On Monday, Mr McCormack and his wife, Lesley, sold their Dunedin screenprinting and embroidery business.
Mr McCormack started Uptown Art in 1983 based out of the Cromwell Chambers building in Dowling St.
A trained screenprinter and signwriter, he did not think there was any way he could get ahead in a business unless he started his own - ‘‘so I went ahead and did it’’.
Back then he was paying $52.50 a month for rent.
‘‘Looking back now it seems incredible. A house, a really nice house, in Dunedin was worth about $50,000 so you see how the scale of the economy has changed over the years,’’ he said.
Initially, the business was purely screenprinting, but after seeing the demand for embroidery, Mr McCormack ‘‘took the plunge’’ and bought his own embroidery machinery.
Asked about his highlights of being in business, Mr McCormack said meeting his wife.
Mrs McCormack joined the business about 30 years ago as an office administrator and the couple had been together about 25 years.
Switching to computer technology in the late 1980s was one of the most significant challenges he believed had paid off .
‘‘It was a complete game-changer, like it has been for so many other businesses. Being able to design on a computer and all the power that generated was just game-changing,’’ he said.
One of the most memorable T-shirts Mr McCormack had printed was one for snooker player Eddie Charlton.
‘‘He actually just popped in to use the toilet off the street and we ended up doing a shirt for him,’’ he said.
He had also printed T-shirts for international rugby teams including France and Georgia during the 2011 Rugby World Cup and for the All Blacks.
The couple were now in a transitional phase with the new co-owners, Alison and Calum Wenlock but, when that was finished, they planned to spend time at their house in Naseby and playing guitar.
Leaving the business was a ‘‘very hard decision’’.
‘‘I love what I do - it was a very hard decision to make and it still is - it has consumed me for 38 years.
‘‘Retirement isn’t retirement for Lesley and myself, it is just stepping sideways into another life,’’ he said.
Mrs Wenlock and her husband bought into Uptown Art alongside three other Dunedin families with the aim of ‘‘taking the business to the next level’’.
They saw Dunedin as a good place to be in the next few years as construction of the hospital and the ACC office would attract more people to town, she said.
They had already invested in new machinery and would be focus on greener practices which would involve becoming carbon neutral.
‘‘There are greener ways of doing business,’’ Mrs Wenlock said.
