my role Merchandise Designer at Paper Mill Playhouse

more info I am highlighting a few productions that I’ve favored designing the merchandise of. I will discuss the designs for The Great Gatsby in full (as opposed to focusing on one item). The design of the t-shirts and tote bag were simple, and had to be. Why? For one, I was provided with very minimal files from the show team to work with. That’s one of the challenges I always face when designing show merchandise. Sometimes we (myself and the design team) will have a lot to work with and sometimes we don’t. That means I generally have to design something from scratch on Illustrator so we have a vector file that will be easier to hand over to our vendors depending on the type of merchandise it is.

Back to Gatsby. Another reason I went with large logos on the merchandise was because it was becoming a big name, and now it’s a broadway show. We knew it would be a premiere and thus I wanted the name, and ours, to be prominent. We did two styles of shirts, one basic crew-neck t-shirt and one that had the logo in a gold shimmery textured text. I thought that would be fun as a fancier option and it referenced the “fancy” time of the roaring 20s.

Why did I design a pin? I am a pin collector. Mainly Disney pins but broadway pin collecting has started to take on a life of its own as well. I knew this audience would want to have something to hold onto to remember this run. I think of Newsies and other pre-broadway engagements and know that the pre-broadway merchandise is always sought after by true fans and collectors. When it came to designing the pin, I had a similar mindset about making the logo and theater names prominent, but how would I do this? I liked using the borders that were not only popular in that time period but were also showcased in our promotional collateral. Another challenge I ended up facing later on was that our pins sold out. Did I mention the fandom is wild? The pins sold out just under a week, but it felt like 2 days. To this day I’m still trying to figure out how to deal with selling out. Honestly, it’s a great thing to sell out, and now we know to anticipate that when we have shows with big-name stars so we will order additional items like buttons.