Even before Noble Folk started in 2017 our creative director had been developing merchandise for bands and brands. This work focused primarily on shirts and even convinced him to start a clothing brand that he ran for almost a decade. With that many years working with merch you could say we sort of love it! Harley-Davidson is easily one of our most recognized names. Working with a brand like that brings in the challenge of infusing our aesthetics into theirs. The process of designing merchandise a year out means we still can’t show the majority of our work, but we hope the few examples and progress we can share will get you excited for when we can show the other seasons’ releases.
The Process
Working with a big name doesn’t change the process much, at least not until we hear things like, “We just printed four-thousand of those.” The entire process begins with an e-mail where we are sent images and written descriptions for shirts they are thinking about selling. Once we fully understand their needs we then begin creating a concept board. We typically create a half-dozen ideas or more so they can take a look and decide what fits their strategy best. We’ll then take the ideas they like and further push them. Once we know we are all on the same page, we begin creating final files that are ready for print. We like this process for a few reasons. The first it keeps our partner close to the project and gives them the ability to sign off on each phase. Another reason we like it is because with rapid iterations we often uncover ideas that may have not been thought of. By producing a multitude of ideas it allows everyone to look and rethink the direction we are headed in and maybe even select more than one design to develop to completion.
