When Sunday Road Brewery came to Printwear, they had a clear brand identity, a growing taproom, and no merchandise. They knew they wanted to sell branded products at the bar and offer them as gifts — but they weren't sure where to start. What they built over the following months became a cohesive, considered merch range that sells consistently and reinforces their brand every time someone wears or uses it.
Starting with the brief
The first conversation wasn't about products — it was about positioning. Sunday Road had invested seriously in their brand: a hand-drawn logo, an earthy, regional colour palette, distinctive can artwork. They wanted their merchandise to feel like a natural extension of that identity, not like generic promo products with a logo dropped on top.
That brief shaped every product decision that followed.
The anchor product: neoprene stubby holders
For a brewery, the stubby holder is almost mandatory merch. It's used in the exact context your brand operates in — cold drinks, good company, outdoor settings. The question wasn't whether to do stubby holders, but how to do them in a way that felt like Sunday Road rather than like a generic promotional product.
The answer: full-colour neoprene sublimation, with the design drawing on their can artwork rather than just repeating the logo. The result was a stubby holder that felt like branded merchandise people would actively choose to use, rather than a freebie from a trade show. They ordered an initial run of 100 units and sold through them faster than anticipated.
The apparel range
Sunday Road didn't want a shelf of generic branded tees. They wanted apparel that someone who'd never heard of the brewery would consider buying based on the product itself.
Their approach: quality blanks (AS Colour mid-weight tees), a restrained colour palette drawn from their brand colours (deep forest green, off-white, black), and a design that used their hand-drawn logo as the hero rather than simply printing it large on the chest.
The screen print was a two-colour front chest hit — logo in off-white on forest green, with a small location tag on the sleeve. Clean, wearable, and unmistakably on-brand. These sell at $50 at the bar and move consistently through summer.
The cap
A classic trucker cap with a front embroidery of the Sunday Road logo, in off-white thread on a black foam front. The trucker style fit their outdoor, regional identity. The embroidery gave it a premium finish that justified the $45 price point. It became their second-best-selling merch item after the stubby holders.
The lessons from Sunday Road's approach
Brand alignment over volume. They launched with three products, not ten. Each one was considered and on-brand. This is better than launching with a wide, inconsistent range of items that don't feel connected to each other.
The blank matters. Using AS Colour tees at $14 per blank rather than a $5 promotional tee changed the product from "promo item" to "something I'd actually buy." The higher cost of the blank is easily absorbed in the retail margin at $50.
Design thinking, not logo placement. Their merch succeeded because the design worked as design — it wasn't just a logo on a product. The stubby holders referenced their can artwork. The tee used considered placement and colour. The cap chose a style that fit the brand's personality.
Photography is part of the product. Sunday Road photographed their merch in context — on the bar, in the taproom, at outdoor events. That photography drove social media engagement and made the products desirable before they were even sold.
The outcome
A merch range that sells consistently, earns margin for the business, and reinforces brand recognition every time a customer uses a stubby holder or wears a cap. It didn't require a massive budget or a design agency — it required clarity about the brand and the discipline to make every product decision serve that clarity.
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