Merchandise mood board

Task 8 (production – Merchandise)

Patrick Gouldsbrough

T-shirts – There are plenty of things that can be considered merchandise on the market these days but to make a successful piece of merchandise, you have to take a popular and highly marketable existing item and put your own spin on it, whether this is with the design or the style. The idea of having t-shirts as a piece of merchandise is a successful one and should be able to generate a lot of profit if I provide the right design and style for the T-shirts. As well as making individual t-shirts, I could also produce product ranges of them which could include the same design n each –shirt but a different colour for the overall t-shirt or parts of it (cuff, collar, etc). The t-shirts that I have found for this mood board are simplistic but are full of features I want to try ad emulate. As you can see, there is little if no text on the t-shirts which doesn’t detract the consumers attention away from the main elements of the product, while the design themselves must be understated and not be too busy. While a busy design might be good for a section of a certain demographic but this would be classed as the niche market not a mass marketable product that I want to create.

Bags – While bags might not be a go to cheap piece of merchandise that you can sell in mass units, they are popular in the surf market, due to the brands in that market choosing to market products such as bags and t-shirts more than any other product. They come in a range of styles (tote, backpack, shopping) which will, at first, make it more difficult to make a decision about this piece of merchandise but after I have experimented with each kind of bag individually, all the time spent experimenting will be worth it because I will then have a product can mass produce and mass market, instead of making a product that is liked by a certain demographic or a minority of each. Despite the rucksack been probably the strongest type of this merchandise, the tote bag will be more efficient to produce and will suit a female demographic, as well as a male one too (they are a unisex item to some extent). This is added to the main problem of trying to get the print or image I will use on the backpack; creating a clipping mask and then multiplying the image on the blending mode will only go so far, where as the tote bag has no zips or hidden parts to it so transferring the artwork onto this type of bag wouldn’t be an issue.

Posters – As well as T-shirts and phone cases as cheap pieces of merchandise, a poster is a piece that can be easily produced, manufactured and then sold on, due to the ‘impulse buy’ nature of a cheap buy in comparison to the bags and bigger items that you have to consider and weigh up if they are worth their money. Before the project began and the brief was shown, I thought it would be wise to make one piece of merchandise from each group (cheap, medium cost, expensive) and then there would be something in each price category to suit all demographic types and all social class types (no assumptions should be made however). The only downside to this product is that alongside the merchandise task in this project, I also have to produce a poster design. For this reason, I may have to think about selecting one of the other products instead of the posters.

Coffee cups – Instead of an impulse buy or a cheap buy, this product tries to get sold through convenience. Where as you may not wear the t-shirt or the backpack and the poster might not get displayed, a travel coffee mug or normal mug can be used on a day to day basis and doesn’t require much thought to be made. The process you have to make something like this is to create a design and then fit it round the cylindrical template for the travel coffee cup. While this product might not be an obvious choice for a surf merchandise piece, it should still be considered and can easily be designed by uploading various designs to Redbubble and testing my artwork on various pieces of merchandise, however, it would be more difficult if I had to do it by hand and find a template and physically fit it and warp it round the cup. On the other hand, if that is what it takes to find a design that work, every aspect will be experimented to get it to work because this product is a strong possibility for a final piece of merchandise.

Phone cases – A very popular and ever growing market, due to the fact that the demand for technology and technology accessories is growing all the time. As well as been in demand, this product is very easy to convert into a phone case template, due to the fact that most of the designs I will have will be portrait and therefore will transfer straight onto the template without much alteration. Even though this product is in demand, it might not be the best piece of merchandise to promote an environmentally friendly charity type company, especially when you think about the effect technology is having on the planet and the potential impact it is having on the pollution. For this reason, I think SAS shouldn’t be linked or directly connected to phone cases or any type of phone accessory. In the past, the charity has acted with integrity and great company values, I think they would be letting themselves down if I decided to select this piece of merchandise for my final piece. Of course, like every other product I have put on the mood board, I will experiment on it but not necessarily develop it to be my final idea for this particular task.

Towel – Like T-shirts, these pieces of merchandise can be directly linked to the SAS values and images and can be easily sold in bulk if fairly priced and marketed. The only item that I have displayed so far that could be directly linked to surfing and is a product that you can customise as much as any other product I have featured on this mood board. Similar to most of the items this far, the towels will be easy to produce and relatively easy to manufacturer, it’s just the sale potential that is a worry for this product. Not known as an impulse buy, the consumer may prefer a cheaper item compared to the towel and as soon as you have a towel, you don’t need another straight after so the demand of this product might not live up to potential compared to a t-shirt, poster or coffee travel mugs. Also, due to the fact that this product isn’t on Redbubble, it will have to be made manually and might be difficult trying to fit a piece of artwork on the product.

Before I’ve even begun the merchandise side of the project, I already have some design pieces for this task, due to me completing the logo design process first and moving onto the other tasks next. I decided to do it this way because all the ideas that hadn’t quite been good enough to be logo design might make great pieces of merchandise, either as part of another design or on their own. Of course, I’m not expecting them all to work but with five designs already acquired and I’m sure more will be produced in the task, I don’t think I will have an issue trying to find artwork for my merchandise.

As well as the products I have displayed on the mood board on page one, there are plenty more I haven’t considered and after a trip to Redbubble, I have found plenty of inspiration for some niche products and some more mass marketable ideas. However, I have decided to not include these on my mood board because they aren’t popular products compared to the ones that I have already included. These products include: cushions, laptop shells, tablet cases, leggings and other pieces of attire.

Before I’ve even begun the merchandise side of the project, I already have some design pieces for this task, due to me completing the logo design process first and moving onto the other tasks next. I decided to do it this way because all the ideas that hadn’t quite been good enough to be logo design might make great pieces of merchandise, either as part of another design or on their own. Of course, I’m not expecting them all to work but with five designs already acquired and I’m sure more will be produced in the task, I don’t think I will have an issue trying to find artwork for my merchandise.

As well as the products I have displayed on the mood board on page one, there are plenty more I haven’t considered and after a trip to Redbubble, I have found plenty of inspiration for some niche products and some more mass marketable ideas. However, I have decided to not include these on my mood board because they aren’t popular products compared to the ones that I have already included. These products include: cushions, laptop shells, tablet cases, leggings and other pieces of attire.