Station16 · Creative direction
Glisson Merch 2027
Thirty pins, five directions
This is the moodboard for Glisson's 2027 merchandise line, sorted. Every pin we saved has been grouped with the ones arguing for the same thing, so you are choosing between five directions rather than thirty images. Each one carries a thesis, what it would cost to produce, and where we think it lands.
- Read the five directions. They are not mutually exclusive — a line can take a badge system from one and a hero print from another.
- Mark the pins. Keep, Maybe or Pass on anything you have an opinion about. Skip the ones you do not. Only Station16 sees your answers, so mark them as you actually feel.
- Leave a note at the end of any direction that needs explaining.
- Pick your top two directions at the bottom of the page. If you do one thing here, do that one.
What the board already agrees on
01One palette, five styles
Twenty-four of the thirty pins sit in the same range: forest green, natural or cream, and a rust red, with blue as the secondary. The board disagrees about style and already agrees about colour.
02Almost nothing is on white
Natural, cream, forest, gold and pigment-dyed grounds carry most of these. The garment colour is doing half the design work, which is also the cheapest half.
03Low ink counts throughout
Most pins run one to three colours. That reads as a deliberate look rather than a budget compromise, and it keeps the per-unit print cost down on every one of them.
04The back is the hero
Wherever a full garment is shown, the art is on the back with a small mark on the front or down a sleeve. Only two pins put the main graphic on the chest.
05Dates and places are everywhere
Five pins stamp a year, a session or a town onto the art. For a camp that is the highest-leverage move on this board: it turns a shirt into a yearbook and gives a returning camper a reason to buy again.
Carved & Printed
Marks that look cut by hand, not drawn on a screen.
- Inks
- 1–2 spot
- Ground
- Natural or pigment-dyed
- Unit cost
- Low
- Best for
- A whole line
Why it fits Glisson
The craft is visible, which suits a place where campers spend the week making things with their hands. The style carries almost any subject — creek creatures, the chapel, a trail marker — so one visual language can cover a whole line rather than one shirt. One or two inks keeps it inexpensive at every size.
What to watch
Block print skews moody quickly. Snakes, moths and moons read as occult to some parents, and Glisson sells to parents. Keep the subject matter to things a camper actually sees on the property.
Noah Kahan tour tee
Cut-paper folk vignette in two inks, with the place and year set quietly in the credit line underneath.
Soundside Music Festival ’24
Two blues on gold. A lighthouse, a sun, a bird and a tree — a whole place rendered as a few carved shapes.
Woosah “School”
Three trout filled with pattern rather than shading. Four muted inks, and no line thinner than the press can hold.
Young Life Snow Camp
The closest comparison on the board: two-colour riso panels, session dates, and an inside joke given its own panel.
Lisa Congdon bandana
One ink, repeating motif. Useful as proof that the style travels off a shirt and onto something else entirely.
Folk sampler grid
Cross-stitch and quilt-block motifs arranged in a grid. Four inks on pigment-dyed brown, with a woven border.
Heron, moth, toad
Heavy black block print on natural, with icon stacks running down both sleeves instead of a second front hit.
Field Guide
Name the things that live here.
- Inks
- 1–2
- Ground
- Natural
- Unit cost
- Medium
- Best for
- Tees, totes, posters, signage
Why it fits Glisson
This is the mission printed on a shirt. Experiential learning in creation, rendered as a plate of species a camper can actually go and find — brook trout, red eft, pileated woodpecker, mountain laurel. It gives the merch a reason to exist beyond a logo, and the same artwork extends to trail signage, nature-centre graphics and curriculum.
What to watch
It only works if the illustration is accurate and good. A lazy version reads as clip art, and campers will absolutely notice if a bird is wrong. This is the direction that needs real illustration budget.
Kestrel and habitat
Two greens on cream, with an ornamental border built from the same vocabulary as the illustration it frames.
California quail
Common name, Latin name, and the bird’s actual range drawn behind it. Four inks doing a lot of work.
Florida State Parks
A numbered key set under the art. One ink, seven species, and it reads as a specimen plate rather than a souvenir.
Alta, Utah
An illustrated map with the landmarks named on the art itself. The same move works for a camp property.
Camp Heraldry
An emblem you earn, then collect.
- Inks
- 1–4
- Format
- Patches, pins, stickers
- Margin
- High
- Best for
- Repeat purchase
Why it fits Glisson
The largest group on the board, and the one that does the most commercial work. A crest per session, per program and per year gives a camper something to collect and a parent something to buy more than once. Patches and enamel pins carry high margin, survive a washing machine and almost never go on sale.
What to watch
Badge sets multiply fast and fall apart without a system. Settle one shield shape, one type family and one palette, then vary only the centre. The fifteenth badge is the one that exposes whether a system existed.
Camp Cherokee “CC25”
Session dates by rising grade, plus a patch and sticker set. The closest comparison for how a camp merchandises a summer.
Homeward Supply Co.
A regional badge, then the same mark on a diner mug — the badge earning its keep somewhere other than a garment.
Trail Fork Coffee
A shaped badge with a custom outline rather than a circle. Three inks, and the silhouette is the memorable part.
Hayfield Farm & Vineyard
A wordmark set inside a carved frame. One ink, and it would hold up embroidered at chest size.
Winnipeg Folk Festival 50
An arched anniversary crest. Structurally this is exactly the shape a “Glisson 2027” mark would take.
Pacific Northwest
Circular sticker with a gradient fill. Simple enough to still read at an inch across on a water bottle.
Adventure badge set
Fifteen marks on a shared palette. Useful mainly as a cautionary example of a set assembled without a system.
Monoline badge pack
Type-led, one ink, no illustration at all. The cheapest and fastest route to a full set of marks.
Poster Graphic
One big illustrated scene that tells a story.
- Inks
- 1–5
- Ground
- Any
- Unit cost
- High
- Best for
- One hero piece per year
Why it fits Glisson
The back-of-shirt hero, and the piece campers photograph. A single scene can hold a whole week — the lake, the hike, the campfire, the last night — in a way a badge or a species plate cannot. It also sells as a print alongside the shirt, which is the cheapest second product on this board.
What to watch
The most expensive illustration here and the hardest to reuse anywhere else. A scene built around one summer dates the moment that summer ends, which is fine if that is the intent and wasteful if it is not.
“Ride and Seek” race poster
A topographic map used as the ground, two inks, with the event type set small and the title carrying the weight.
Howler x Helms
Snake and corn stalk, four inks on heather, with a phrase arched over the art and a collaboration credit below.
Death Cab, Agora Theatre
Textured halftone across four inks. The texture is doing the work here, not the drawing underneath it.
soilboy “Grow Slow”
One ink, dense line, framed in a box. The cheapest possible version of a hero back print.
Camp scene, outlined
Two inks, heavy outline, kids and bikes and tents. The only pin on the whole board with genuine youth energy.
“Here for the View”
A comic-panel grid holding eight small scenes instead of one big one. A single ink on pigment-dyed cotton.
The View
The place itself is the graphic.
- Inks
- 1–4
- Ground
- Forest, natural, white
- Unit cost
- Medium
- Best for
- Parents, alumni, retreats
Why it fits Glisson
The broadest appeal on the board — the shirt a parent, an alum or a retreat guest buys without ever having been a camper. Dahlonega, the Chestatee, the Blue Ridge foothills. This is the direction that sells in the off-season.
What to watch
Also the most crowded territory anywhere. Generic ridgelines and pine trees are on a shirt in every mountain town in America. It only works anchored to something specifically Glisson: a named overlook, the real skyline, a building people recognise on sight.
FLOW identity
Photographic rather than illustrated, with the trail drawn as a single line threaded through the letterforms.
Parks Project, Yosemite
Topographic line art in magenta on forest green. The off-palette ink is the entire reason this one works.
Layered ridgelines
Tonal greens plus one gold, with a distressed texture carried across every layer rather than applied on top.
“Greetings From” postcards
Photography and script lettering, sold as a set. Worth noting as a non-apparel format with almost no unit cost.
Himalayas, editorial
Coordinates, elevation and a four-panel crop. Easily the most contemporary pin on the board, and the most generic.
What is not on the board yet
No kid or teen energy
Almost every pin comes from an adult outdoor or music brand. One pin — the outlined camp scene — actually looks like it was made for someone under eighteen. Glisson’s core buyer is a camper or a camper’s parent.
No faith or ministry language
The Young Life tee is the only camp-ministry reference here, and even it stays secular on the surface. That may well be the right call, but it should be a decision rather than an omission.
Nothing much beyond a tee
One mug, one bandana, one postcard set, some patches and stickers. No hats, bottles, blankets or towels — all of which outsell shirts at a residential camp.
No type-only option
Every direction here leans on illustration. A purely typographic line would be the cheapest to produce, the fastest to turn around, and the easiest to reprint mid-summer when a size sells out.
Your top two directions
Pick the two you want Station16 to develop into finished concepts. Tap one for your first choice and a second for your runner-up; tapping a third replaces the earlier one.
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