Besides creating publicity materials for Wellesley College’s Taiwanese Cultural Organization (TCO) as their design chair, I was also responsible for our merchandise, overseeing everything from the design to ordering the final product.


Before I put anything on paper, my first step was brainstorming possible designs. They obviously had to be related to Taiwanese culture, and some of my initial ideas included TCO’s logo, the Taiwanese black bear included on all of TCO’s publicity materials, Taiwanese food, and the Taipei 101 building. After much research and thought, I settled on designing a collage of Taiwanese food arranged into the shape of Taiwan itself. Although I was given complete creative control, I still wanted input from the rest of TCO and created a simple mockup of what I was envisioning to present.


After getting approval, I started working on the actual design. Underneath my drawing layer, I had a map of Taiwan so I could fit each food as I was drawing, but I wasn’t afraid to move sections around if they looked better positioned somewhere else. I also had a list of Taiwanese foods to include in my design that I had gathered from my own experience, as well as from asking other Taiwanese people. And, as always, I compiled various reference images for each food item. In an effort to keep costs low, I drew everything in only one color, including a basic outline of TCO’s logo.


Once the design was completed, I compared prices across different companies, created examples of what the design would look like on different merchandise options and in different colors, and compiled everything into a questionnaire that I sent out to the rest of the organization. After making a decision on what the final product would look like, I created another questionnaire to gather order information and we finally ordered our merchandise.