No Frank Ocean Merchandise

April 16th 2023, Day 3 of Coachella. It was the day we finally got to see Frank Ocean live and after seeing the merch booth dedicated for each headliner in prior days we got to the polo fields early to get a chance to purchase some memorabilia of what we thought would be the best day ever.

Like many others we arrived to the venue surprised to see no line at the merch booth and the infamous sign in white with bold red letters reading “NO FRANK OCEAN MERCHANDISE.” Although disappointed it didn’t get us down. We still had a whole day of music ahead of us and the main event was still to come… but we all know how that went.

Although controversial I personally really enjoyed the performance. The abrupt ending did leave a bad taste of disappointment but I really think if he was able to finish his set we would have concentrated much more on the performance highlights.

After the show I rewatched whatever YouTube videos were out there, re-listened to any audio recorded (esp White Ferrari Coachella Version), and dove straight back into Blonde steady on repeat like it was 2016 again. A friend turned me on to the Blonde Season of the podcast called “DISSECT” and it inspired me to design my own merchandise!

I went track by track and kept the designs simple sometimes being little obscure and in others using direct references to the song with either imagery or song lyrics. I wanted it to be something that only other Frank Oceans fans would instantly recognize; A shirt that in most cases you are the only one that really gets it; A shirt when you wear it there might be that one other person that gets it cause “we don’t gotta be solo.”

Check out my designs here