Hi Merchies,

Happy six months to DRIP DROP! Issue #26 means we’ve been doing this for half a year. From both of us, thanks so much for loving cool merch as much as we do.

We’ve covered a pretty big range of industries and merch, but there’s still so much more to go. Don’t be scared to send in your favourite (or, hot take, most hated) merch to feature too!

Gaz & Kayla

Over the past week I’ve been blessed with a number of cool digital experiences, which in my mind, amount to micro-dosing merch! First of all, I snagged tickets to Laneway 2027 where the one and only Hayley Williams is headlining. She also released a website to Build a Hayley where you get a (digital) paper doll of her to dress up and you’re encouraged to share your creations of her.

For any brand where there’s a “face” (obviously very easy when you’re a musician) and you have a lot of original content such as photoshoots or video, this is a pretty cool way to release that content in an interactive format.

My second example is a character quiz from Moomin, where at the end you get a selection of shareable “cards” which you’re encouraged to post on social media and connect with other fans.

Finally, we have the Hi-Chew logo maker! This one requires some instruction so let me help you:

There’s plenty of mini, digital things you can make. Whether that’s achievement badges, a micro-site, or, something I did was to make custom stickers for WhatsApp/texting.

I went into a photobooth (notably, a Korean style one which gives you a QR code for the digital photos) with a list of specific poses to re-create emojis and then used Canva to remove the background, saved the transparent images on my phone, and made stickers. I also made a TikTok about it.

Since it’s a 6 month anniversary, I’ll take a beat to do ‘storytime’ today. DRIP DROP for me has intentionally not been a highly self-promotional vehicle. It has not been intended to be a place where week on week I show off the merch I myself have designed, as it’s always about other peoples’

In today’s issue, that gets thrown out the window, but I shan’t short circuit next week and repeat!

2 years ago, I was in the phase of getting started growing my company GROUP GROUP, and I decided I definitely needed some new headshots soon, but for some reason my main priority was mainly new merch? (Funny that)

I was soon heading to Western Australia for their annual West Tech Festival - my favourite startup/tech festival to attend in Australia - and I’m a bit of an ambassador for them from my terrible-weather-location-over-East. You ever attended a sundowner on Wadjemup/Rottnest Island to talk shop? Diabolical.

Anyhoo, I really wanted to create an individual piece for when I was there, as I didn’t want to hand out business cards, I wanted to talk about merch, as that was a particular thing I really enjoyed doing with companies for their brand-building efforts.

But I wanted something subtle, almost an IYKYK piece, and nothing hideous like a canva AI generated logo printed by temu-merch-4-u on a gildan tee.

My logo for GROUP GROUP initially was this Rorschach that signified plenty of things - sort of ambiguous for sure, but essentially 2 x G’s, but also in hands form, but also resembling birds (the whole group/flock thing) and even the negative space at top forming a W (for my surname, Williams). Plus I played in a metal band, and this looked metal-as-fuck. (People see all types of things in Rorschach’s by the way, so whatever floats your boat on that front…)

So I decided I was going to the West, and I must have a Western themed Shirt, so that was an easy start. And I went to Mikey at Good Ideas for both the photoshoot and the merch embroidery (and printing other items). All designed by me, a non-designer.

I went the embroidery-only route, on a standard AS Colour long-sleeve shirt as that’s the only option I could source at the time with comfort.

I then designed a ‘WEST’ for the back as that’s what I would be wearing in to Perth/Fremantle, and because I love q conversation about merch: I even slapped an easter egg in there.

The colour scheme on the back (it needed some colour) I decided was going to have the most niche reference ever - a nod to Australian Football Teams in the West, consisting of the WA ones (West Coast Eagles and Fremantle Dockers) and my neighbourhood of Footscray (Western Bulldogs). I run an AFL podcast, it’s a whole thing.

These are the types of things I (over)think about when it comes to merch design.

When it went to the printer, I decided it was too good to make just one so I made two, but there was a slight miscommunication and the second version came back a size smaller. I wasn’t keen to get on the ozempic, so I thought “I must find a mate to wear this.” And I picked the perfect friend to put a merch ring on it.

Sean Grealy - who is a leading sales/GTM founder and advisor in Aus with his company Sell Anything - is a fellow merch aficionado - and I knew he would love this. And love this he did, and then some.

Now, Sean reps this as actual fashion wear all around Adelaide, and by all accounts, gets street-stopped to talk about it all the time. People want to touch the embroidery - and by extension touch Sean I guess - and it’s all very wholesome in a way that only good merch knows.

I now have a number of new pieces at the printer/embroiderer, ready to rep next week and onwards.

Yes I overthought them for a few months there, but I did press ‘Go’ and I’ll share those in coming weeks, sporadically.

May good merch continue to be overthought (but eventually sent off to be created), forever. xo

No intention of making this a big flex, ego thing. More to say '“if this has been on your mind for ages, but you can’t make a decision on it, I see you.” Everyone always overthinks this, and the ones who don’t, have terrible merch. What I would say is create a deadline for yourself - some moment when you have to be walking into a room or a scenario with your new merch being rocked - an upcoming meeting, an event, a gathering with friends, posting about yourself on the socials event - and hit that date by working backwards on the design, brief, turnaround time at printers (give that 2 weeks for comfort & respect for their timeline), then pay the damn invoice quick and get on the merch high horse.