This Week, I Made…
Week 006 | SWAG (Stuff We All Get)
I have a weakness for swag. Specifically making swag!
Any excuse to design a hoodie, sticker, or t-shirt, I’ll take it. It’s one of those things where I’ll start casually and suddenly look up, and it’s 2 am and I’ve gone way further than intended.
This week, though, there was an actual reason.
We’re launching a new AI program for middle school students at the end of the month, and I need folders to hold their worksheets and materials. I wanted something that felt branded — something that made it feel like theirs. So I designed a sticker specifically for the program to put on the folders (and to remind them of the core message - “Use AI Responsibly | Verify Everything | AI should Amplify, Not Replace”)
Once I started, I designed a second one too — a more general CREATINEERS sticker. Our old stickers still had the previous logo, and it felt like time to update them.
There’s something really satisfying about this kind of design. Maybe it’s because it’s so tangible. You make something digital, and very quickly it becomes physical — something you can hold, stick onto something, and see in the real world.
This love of swag has quietly turned into its own little sandbox. I have a CREATINEERS merch site that exists mostly for me right now (There is even a hat that Lee, my 8 year old son, designed on there!). I don’t publicize it. It’s just a place where I can experiment — design something, see how it looks on a hoodie or sticker, and make it real if I want to.
That said, I can already see how this could extend further. The idea of printing t-shirts for the students in the program — something they can wear and feel part of — feels really exciting. There’s something special about turning an idea into a physical object that someone carries with them and brings the brand + messaging to a greater audience organically.
I’ve always spent most of my career on the technical side of creativity — lighting, 3D, building systems. I never really defined myself as a traditional designer or illustrator. But designing swag taps into a different part of my brain. It’s immediate. It’s playful. It’s low pressure.
It also makes me realize how accessible this process is now. With on-demand platforms, you can design something and have it exist physically almost instantly. Sometimes I joke that one day I’ll stop buying t-shirts entirely and just design my own. Not necessarily branded ones — just things I want to wear. The idea that you can create the objects that exist in your daily life is pretty amazing. (Imagine - when someone asks you, where did you get that t-shirt, you can simply say “I designed it for myself.” ← ;)
This week’s making came from a real need — creating something for the students in this new AI program. But it also reminded me how much joy I get from designing physical objects, even small ones.
Sometimes it starts with something as simple as a sticker.
This week, I made…