Relentless Merch started life as two brothers figuring out how to make band T-shirts in a basement. Fast forward eight years, and the Lincoln, NE, shop has expanded to 12 employees and is handling complex and high-end decoration work – like custom embroidering a $600 pair of Yeezy Adidas sneakers.

“We just kept growing and needing more equipment,” says Matt Richardson, co-owner. “We just keep pushing.”

Richardson and his younger brother, Nathan, started their apparel decorating firm to make merch for Nathan’s band, Salt Creek. Soon enough, other bands were asking for Relentless Merch’s services. The shop currently has two automatic screen-printing presses and multiple embroidery heads.

To make it through the coronavirus pandemic, Relentless Merch set up a Here for Good campaign and raised around $10,000 for Lincoln-area businesses, according to Matt Richardson. The shop also set up around 80 webstores for customers.

Richardson shared several of the biggest trends he and his team are seeing in band merch and custom clothing lines.

1. Shoe Embroidery

Decayer, a deathcore band out of Tucson, AZ, wanted to generate hype for its upcoming album release, so they asked Relentless Merch to embroider the band’s name on a pair of black Yeezys. “It was just kind of a wild thing,” Richardson says. “We really hadn’t done any shoes prior, but we just went for it.”

Though it was intimidating to decorate such a high-ticket item, Richardson and his team didn’t let the $600 price tag of the shoes deter them. The shop purchased a special shoe clamp and embroidered the band’s logo onto the mesh on the side of the sneakers. “It turned out pretty good,” Richardson notes.

Decayer is raffling off the custom kicks to fans who pre-save their new album on Apple Music or Spotify.

Pre-save our new EP ‘Shades of Grief’ for a chance to win a pair of custom Decayer Yeezys! https://t.co/jING0ZmELl pic.twitter.com/iikedVJBco

— 𝐃𝐄𝐂𝐀𝐘𝐄𝐑 (@Decayer) June 17, 2020

2. Puff Ink

Lately, Richardson says, his shop has seen “huge demand” for puff ink, particularly on Comfort Colors shirts. “It’s kind of like that ’90s aesthetic everyone is after, mixed with the 2000’s culture of Pokémon art,” he adds.

Of late, Relentless Merch has decorated about 1,000 shirts with puff ink. “It’s really interesting temperamental stuff,” Richardson says.

His best advice for working with puff ink is that you shouldn’t flash it: “You can’t print-flash-print puff to get it to rise more. You just have to have a lot of ink down. Basically, once it gets heat added to it, it rises, but if you heat it up and try to heat it again, it won’t.”

He recommends lowering dryer temperatures and using a longer dwell time to get the ink to rise more.

3. Custom tags

Relentless Merch recently bought a special machine for sewing tags on garments to meet customer demand for hem tags. The trendy touch is particularly sought after by churches wanting to give custom shirts to their congregations for various events. “A lot of churches want fully custom apparel,” Richardson says. “They want to be a clothing line.”

Custom neck labels are also popular, he says. The shop has had requests to add brand labels to replace the inside labels on Dickies jackets, for example.

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