Lessons from the collection we built with Young Jerks
Young Jerks had just finished rebuilding our brand, and we wanted another way to keep working together. A custom merch drop felt like the right next step, this time with us handling the screen printing and production. Meg Yahashi-Palmer, Brett Stenson, Dan Christofferson, and Dan Cassaro put together a concept deck on their end, and Nate and Dorothy led the project on ours.
That deck was full of merch drop ideas, including a Monkey Man "Worldwide" graphic, a Coast to Coast design, Computer Sports, an igloo-racing nylon hat, a Crime Stoppers five-panel, dog hats, gloves, a fanny pack, and a green glass mug. This one didn't start with a shortage of ideas, so we worked together home in on the winners.
Start with a strong vision, then let the products follow it
A recognizable brand name can help sell merch, but it shouldn't be the only reason someone buys it. The graphics and ideas need to connect with people on their own, whether or not they already know the company behind them.
Young Jerks understood exactly who they were designing for. Much of their audience is made up of designers and other creative people, and that's where a concept like "North American Computer Sports" came from. It was specific, funny, and familiar to the exact people they wanted to reach. The collection felt like Young Jerks, but the graphics could also stand on their own outside that context.
Dorothy took the concept deck and started matching each design to products that would work for it. Her first round included hats from Weld Mfg. and AS Colour, vintage-style tees from Lane Seven and LAT, a Comfort Colors heavyweight long sleeve, a Champion crewneck, and options for the fanny pack and mug. The dog hats and gloves got set aside for a future project, since the collection needed focus more than volume.
From that first pass, Young Jerks narrowed everything down to four pieces. The lineup became a hat, a tee, a long sleeve, and a mug, and that's when the collection started to take shape, especially once they asked whether the brown tone they liked could extend to more of the lineup.
Choose a merch partner who builds the collection with you
Strong artwork can still fall flat on the wrong product. A good merch partner takes the creative vision and helps shape it into a collection, rather than printing whatever was on the original wish list.
That means thinking through fit, weight, color, decoration method, availability, and price for every piece, and knowing when to swap a blank, order a sample, or hold an idea for later. The Young Jerks hat evolved from the original surf and canvas cap concepts into an AS Colour Class Two-Tone Cap, embroidered in two locations.
The tee needed more problem-solving. The plan was an AS Colour Box Tee in Walnut, but it went out of stock until February. Dorothy switched to the American Apparel 9001 Super Heavyweight Tee, which had a similar boxy fit and came in the right shade of brown, and swapped in a custom printed tag to replace the original label.
The long sleeve stayed consistent from Dorothy's first recommendation straight through to the final collection. The final piece was a Comfort Colors 6014 Garment-Dyed Heavyweight Long Sleeve for the "North American Computer Sports" design, printed in multicolor across four locations.
Then there was the mug, which took the most sourcing and became the standout of the whole collection. It was also a chance to bring in some of the promotional products we're beginning to offer directly, which will show up on our website over the coming months. Young Jerks had originally loved a green milk glass mug from their concept deck, but once the rest of the collection leaned brown, they asked us to find something that fit the new direction. Nate and Dorothy came back with two options from Numo, the 10-ounce Nest Ceramic Mug in Chai or Chamoy, and the 12-ounce Cove Amber Glass Mug.
The glass mug looked beautiful, but it also cost nearly four times as much. Young Jerks went with the Nest Ceramic, and Dorothy recommended Chamoy for its richer, orangey brown, which matched the brown already in the shirt and the print.
Before committing to the full order, we brought in a blank sample and ran it through our usual mug testing. It passed, so we sent photos from the studio. Meg's response was, "The mug looks GREAT. We're in, let's do it!"
Have a fulfillment plan before you launch
For this branded merch launch, Young Jerks worked with a fulfillment partner connected directly to their Shopify store, so orders moved straight into fulfillment without their team packing and shipping every shirt, hat, and mug by hand.
Products need to be stored, picked, packed, shipped, and tracked, and getting that system in place before launch means the team can spend launch week promoting the collection instead of scrambling to fulfill it.
Because Young Jerks had fulfillment already connected to their store, they could push the collection as hard as the response warranted instead of holding back to protect their own capacity to pack and ship orders. That's part of why they could push this one hard right out of the gate. The system was ready before the first order came in.
Launch it and see
What started as a deck full of ideas became four connected products, with the mug turning into the breakout piece of the drop. Young Jerks brought the vision and the graphics. We turned those ideas into physical products, and their fulfillment setup got the collection to the people who wanted it.
The collection launched on March 16, 2026, and about 25% of every product sold within the first two weeks. Young Jerks' take on the finished collection was, "Chef's kiss, no notes, A++++."
