Morpher: Merchandise ideas

The band have an organised tour coming up at the end of the year which may be a good time to start to sell merchandise as their fan base by then will have increased. Theband have asked for some sketches and rough mock ups of some ideas that they could take forward as merchandise if they decide to get it produced. We spoke about socks, badges/stickers and t-shirts as a starting point and they want some different approaches they could take. The agreement is now that I will continue to work for the band so as the year progresses this will be something that we develop together. 

The mindmp was a good place to start as it allowed me to think about the different ways the merchandise culd be developed. Phrases would be a good thing to include as part of the merchandise because it shows the bands personality and ways in which they interact with their target audience. To find the phrases that they commonly use I went through their Facebook page and looked at each of the posts that they have made. The most common word was 'wonky' and they use it in a number of ways, but it is nearly definitely present in the majority of Facebook posts. 

I started by looking at the ways in which the phrase could be presented on a t-shirt, placing it in the obvious place of the chest and also experimenting with the sleeves and collar. The simple chest placement works well and this could be for the band members on stage, but in terms of merchandise it isn't likely to sell with people intending to wear it as it is a little too 'in your face'. The more discrete placement of the word around the collar works well and is more likely to sell at a gig as it is something that the user could wear. 

Taking inspiration from some socks seen in a local shop in Leeds, I started to draw up some different options that the band could consider when finalising the design of their own socks to sell. The ribbed and long socks are in fashion amongst the target audience of Morpher, making them the appropriate style to choose. The sketches explore the placement of the different elements and how they could work on the sock. A simple approach would be to take the shape out of the logo and place at the top of the sock, ensuring that the audience would buy this design because it is stylish and discrete. Another option would be to taking the word 'wonky' or the phrase 'let's get wonky' and use that on the sock to show the more humorous side of the band. 

Taking inspiration from the Pink Floyd sticker, the Morpher logo has been used in a number of ways on the sticker. It would be good to produce a set of stickers rather than just one design to make it more interesting for the audience. The design that works the best is the centre one of the three because having the logo shape in the centre from almost edge to edge uses the circular shape in the best way. As the final design I think the centre one with the same size logo but with out the writing work the most effectively for the band to sell at gigs.