Icy Tan is a Chinese illustrator as well as a merchandise designer for milk tea brand Hi Tea in China and glasses brand Mujosh.
merchandise of Mojushi designed by Icy
I got in touch Icy on social media and invited her to be one of the characters in my film. However, Icy refused me. She did not think that she knew well about merchandise as a merchandise designer. We then have a small talk online about merchandise and her role as a illustrator in merchandise design.
According to Icy, in the cooperation with the brands, she was only responsible for illustration which was printed on the merch but did not know much about the merch itself.
She talked a little bit about her collaboration with several Chinese brands such as the eyewear brand MUJOSH. She said that in collaborations, the brand usually has a theme on the illustration and tells her what the illustration will be used for or what kind of merch the illustration will be printed on. Then she would create illustrations based on the theme, giving more consideration to the connections with the theme and the brand image, rather than the connections to a particular merch or to consumers.
When I asked her if the overall effect of the illustration had changed when it was printed on a product such as a canvas bag, she soon replied that the two things influence each other more or less, but that’s not what her care about.
This unexpected answer made me think more about the design of merch. If an illustrator does not pay attention to the connections between the design and a specific merch, who does this? Would consumers pay if a merch means simply printing a logo or illustration on a product? Although I did not successfully invite Icy as a character in my film, I got some perspectives from the merchandise designer and came up with some question which need to be found out.