I think there is a generally favorable opinion among pretty much the entire Yuga ecosystem that we want high quality, interesting, inclusive and wide assortment of cool merch, specifically coming out of the DAO.
While others have tried to tackle this issue with some designs or ideas for a merch shop/marketplace - it feels like a very tough lift at once, considering all the moving parts where you need a big team consisting of people who are experts in designing, sourcing, online ship building, shipping and all the other supply chain logistical costs that come with it as well.
One of my ideas is that we have a discussion as a community to see what type of designers or people in the fashion world we want to reach out to and at the very least get started on step 1 (and how step 1 would even look)
Ideally this would look like
1 - Finding/ contacting and setting up a shortlist of 3-4 talented designers who are excited to work with the DAO on web3 merch and have extensive experience in that world.
2 - Setting up a proposal for a framework of an initial brandbook - this would be a piece of work/guidelines that anyone can build merch proposals on top of, not just the designer we are choosing.
3 - Using the brandbook, create mockups/designs for a few pieces of merch.
4 - Utilize Apecoin governance to really put up some designs for a vote on what direction the DAO wants the designer to focus on.
5 - Iterate on the designs and/or take a diff route based on outcome.
6 - Create a much larger proposal to do a small merch run. Proposal would require a lot of info on working with the DAO/special council/foundation to provide details on suppliers, timelines, costs etc.
What do you think? Lets get the ball rolling on this.