The importance of telling a story to help build a brand, promote a campaign, or highlight a cause cannot be understated. Just ask Jeremy Picker, founder and creative director of AMB3R Creative. Picker has long been involved in creating brand stories, collaborating with industry partners to bring them to life.

Recently, Picker and AMB3R’s Mexican Art Director Angelo Montiel teamed up with JERZEES and Topshelf Printers (located in Greeley, Colorado) to create a Cinco de Mayo celebration campaign. He gave the scoop to Apparelist on the backstory and purpose of the project.

More Than Just Merch

Credit: AMB3R Creative

“This campaign is more than just apparel or a holiday — it’s a celebration of heritage, identity, and creativity,” Picker explains. The goal of the project is to spotlight the mash-up of Colorado and Mexican culture. He and designer Montiel enlisted creative design and retail-ready merchandise to celebrate “our Chicano and Mexican community.”

Picker is excited to team up with Topshelf being a Colorado local himself. The project highlights Cinco de Mayo as it’s remembered in Mexico and celebrated in the U.S., he says. Bringing the lens even closer to Colorado is important for him. “Three of us companies (including some of the Apparelist team) are from Colorado, and I’ve been collaborating with JERZEES for about six months,” he says. Picker points out that Denver has a Latino/a population of approximately 27% and Greeley has about 41%.*

“Bringing the Hispanic culture to light in our area is needed, and having a platform like clothing and branded materials makes this really easy to do,” says Blake Burroughs, CSO at Topshelf. He adds that a collaboration like this is a fairly simple process when everyone commits to the vision and works together.

To start with, the campaign will include T-shirts. Eventually Picker plans to have a full limited-edition merch line. It may include “custom Luchador masks, Mexican pop culture Ts, Colorado pinatas, and other items to represent la cultura.”

The T-shirts will bring a vintage vibe, a trend that’s still going strong in the apparel community. Picker hopes that the pieces showcase a “traditional Mexico-inspired piece with our design aesthetic — Angelo would like to share his heritage through fashionable snapshots.”

Ahead of the launch, the AMB3R Creative crew joined the Topshelf team onsite to execute the initial production. Burroughs notes the team effort during the printing phase. “JERZEES donated shirts, AMB3R (Angelo and PICK3R) came up with all the creative and great designs, and Topshelf executed the screen print and private labeling,” he explains. “On this particular project, we only used screen print but moving forward, we will implement some other decoration methods to keep creating cool campaigns like this.”

Celebrating Culture Through Merch Collab

Beyond just bringing a collaboration to life, Picker notes that it’s about inspiration and celebration. “The project is for Colorado Mexicans and anyone else that loves and appreciates the Mexican culture,” he believes. “[The campaign] shows how multiple companies can cross-promote to celebrate one cause. It also shows [the process of] going from ideation to promotion, which gives all our clients a real-life example of what can be accomplished when working together.”

When asked why they chose to focus on Cinco de Mayo, Picker quotes three considerations:

• Cinco de Mayo honors the 1862 Battle of Puebla, where a small Mexican force, led by General Zaragoza, defeated the French army — a powerful symbol of resistance and national pride.
• It’s not Mexico’s Independence Day, but became a symbol of cultural resilience, especially among Mexican-Americans during the Chicano Movement in the U.S.
• Today, it’s celebrated more in the U.S. than in Mexico, blending heritage, identity, and pride — though often misunderstood and commercialized.

For everyone involved, refocusing away from commercialization was key. “I think for all of us [that worked on this project], we are eager to continue to learn our business, our customers, and our trade,” says Burroughs. “While some might not find these projects a great way to spend marketing efforts, we look at it as a great way to build relationships with our partners, our community, and our internal team.”

While merch collaborations can also be misunderstood and misused, Picker says that’s not the case here. “Selling T-shirts as a commodity and building a brand are very different,” he believes. “Because part of a brand’s ethos is supporting the community, collabs can bring in a bigger audience, which can bring more impact and awareness.”

*According to 2023 demographic information from the United States Census Bureau.