the Great Blue Heron 2025

merch collection design & strategy for family-friendly music festival

The Great Blue Heron Music Festival asked me to design their merch collection for the third year in a row. This year, the festival organizers sought to increase profitability to help pay for major infrastructure projects. So in addition to design, the organizers requested my help with strategy, merchandising, and production coordination.

The audience at the Great Blue Heron loves quirky graphics, bold colors, and hand-crafted aesthetics. While t-shirt sales are steady year after year, the organizers seek new products each year to excite festival goers and keep sales growing. In 2025, we introduced bandanas, which became a fast seller.

By developing a merchandising strategy and analyzing previous years sales, I helped the Great Blue Heron grow their return on investment from 11% in 2024 to 66% in 2025.

Roles

Merch Design

Strategy

Production Coordination

"Ben is great! So creative, very organized, and knows how to get everything coming on time. Ordering merch was always stressful and late when I didn't have his help. And he has been able to nail down the quantities which means that we make more profit!”

— Julie Rockcastle, Co-founder The Great Blue Heron Music Festival