So, I made a shop.

It’s somewhere between 2:30 and 3 in the morning, and I have just finished opening an online shop. This is probably the point where a sensible person would close the laptop and write an announcement after some sleep. But I’m excited, so you’re getting the version written by someone still sitting here grinning at a hat.

There are shirts, hats, mugs, and totes. There are robots with feelings, a banana, a few declarations of “nope,” and some things for the professionally concerned among us. Which, yes, includes me.

I got a little carried away

Over the weekend, I started turning a brain dump of ideas into an actual collection. A phrase became a graphic. A graphic looked good on a shirt. Then I wanted to see it on a mug. Then I had another idea. At some point, I was choosing thread colors for hats and writing product descriptions, which is a surprisingly effective way to lose track of time.

Some of the ideas come straight from my work. “Good with change.” “Professional cat herder.” “Professionally concerned.” If you’ve spent time helping people get things done together, you probably understand the appeal. Others are just things I find funny or want to look at. You don’t need to be a project manager to appreciate a well-placed “nope.”

I used AI as part of the creative process, alongside a lot of my own decisions about words, images, color, layout, and what felt like me. I sketched ideas, scribbled notes, and at one point wrote something on a sticky note that ended up on a shirt. There was plenty of trying something, deciding it was terrible, and trying again. I set the shop up with Fourthwall, which handles production and shipping, so I can keep working on the ideas without turning my home office into a fulfillment center.

This started before the shop

I’ve been creating a new visual identity and rebuilding my website myself, and I don’t think I realized how much energy that would give me.

I spend so much of my working life helping other people move their work forward. I love that work. But spending time making something of my own, following an idea through, seeing it take shape, and being able to change it myself has been incredibly satisfying.

The bright colors, torn paper, halftone images, robots, and slightly opinionated typography have given me a whole set of things to play with. The more I worked on the site, the more ideas I had for where that visual world could go. Eventually, it spilled onto shirts.

There’s something energizing about getting to the end of a day and being able to point at a thing that exists because you decided to make it. Even when that thing is a mug that refuses to participate.

I’m proud of what I’ve made so far. I’m also having a ridiculous amount of fun. That feels worth paying attention to.

Consider this the first batch

The collection is a starting point: a bunch of ideas I wanted to get out of my head and into the world. I’ll keep adding more, experimenting, and seeing what people respond to. I’m giving myself room to enjoy making things and let the shop develop as I go.

And I’d love your thoughts. What made you laugh? What would you actually wear? Is there a phrase, a design, or a type of product you’d like to see? If you spot something weird in the shop, I’d appreciate hearing that, too. I’ve been looking at it for a lot of hours.

Take a look at the collection, and tell me what you think. Buying something would be lovely, obviously, but I’m happy just to have you poke around and share an idea.

Okay. It’s almost 3 a.m. The shop is open. This post is happening.

I should probably go to bed before I design another hat.