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Senja Jarva
Senja Jarva

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What makes good developer merch?

Last week, my order from Dev's merch store arrived, hip hip array! I finally have some Dev.to stickers ๐Ÿฅณ ๐Ÿ˜(The only downside of was, that I had ordered two packs, and got only one...)

This week, as I've been browsing black friday deals everywhere, I've been wondering, what makes developer merch good. Is it just the dev jokes on the merch? Or the merch itself, whether it's stickers, mugs, t-shirts or face masks? What about the color or size selection? Or (dare I even suggest this) is it the font? Or sometimes the (lack of) graphics?

What do you think? What is your favorite merch (either something you own already or something you'd like to buy)? Why is it your favorite?

Is there some merch that isn't available anywhere, but you're dreaming about it?

Top comments (7)

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nathandao profile image
nathan • Edited

My favourite is the first version of the Gopher squishable, which unfortunately does not seem to be on sale anymore at the moment :(

dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/...

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minna_xd profile image
Minna N.

We have two of those! Love 'em.

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sjarva profile image
Senja Jarva

Same questions to you Minna! ๐Ÿ‘†๐Ÿป

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minna_xd profile image
Minna N.

For me, I'm just a sucker for collectibles, especially geeky plushies. So, I like the gophers because they are cute and I'm a collector of silly things.

Plushies are in no way useful and I'm trying to be an adult ๐Ÿ˜„ which is why for dev merch for myself I think I'd prefer something I can use: shirt, mug (although I currently have too many of those)...
I like dev jokes/references, I'd love to find more purple clothes (or purple things, in general), and the clothes would have to suit my hippy frame. Useful things (with pretty colours or nice images/logos or fun texts) could be lanyards, notebooks... oh, reflectors!

Stickers are nice but I think I'd perhaps prefer badges (for attaching to clothes/bags) for improved re-use.

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sjarva profile image
Senja Jarva

Aww, I haven't seen these before, but they look super cute! What makes them good in your opinion? Is it the size, the material, the idea...? ๐Ÿ˜Š

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nathandao profile image
nathan • Edited

Yess! Theyโ€™re the cutest! :D Although I donโ€™t work with Go nowadays, nor consider myself a religious Go fan, itโ€™s still great to have such creatures hanging on my table (their size is a great fit for that habitat). I only have blue gopher, but they are also available in different colors! twitter.com/bradfitz/status/103376...

For adventurous crafters, thereโ€™s a great talk by the artist who created the Gopher about their origin and anatomies ๐Ÿ˜Ž dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/...

youtu.be/4rw_B4yY69k

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lauravuo profile image
Laura Vuorenoja

I love the dev.to stickers, especially the sloth is my favorite :) I would love to see more merch shops that take special care that the products are made in a sustainable and enviroment-friendly way.