Licensed apparel design,
built to be approved and sold.
A license gives you the right to use a property. It does not give you a line. Designland designs licensed apparel for licensees and for brands running collaborations: artwork that stays true to the style guide, CADs ready for approval, tech packs your factory can build from, and the deck that sells it in. We have done it for properties from Keith Haring to Paris Saint-Germain.
20+
Years designing
licensed product
licensed product
100M+
Products
produced
produced
4
Seasons of Keith Haring
at Urban Outfitters
at Urban Outfitters
Sold out
PSG × CRASH drop,
Champs-Élysées
Champs-Élysées
Licensed properties and brands we have designed for
Keith Haring✦Paris Saint-Germain✦Ed Hardy✦Joe Boxer✦Betty Boop✦National Parks Foundation✦Urban Outfitters✦Umbro✦Keith Haring✦Paris Saint-Germain✦Ed Hardy✦Joe Boxer✦Betty Boop✦National Parks Foundation✦Urban Outfitters✦Umbro✦
Designland is a New York City studio that designs licensed apparel for licensees and for the brands behind licensed collaborations.
Licensed product has a problem most apparel does not: it has to satisfy two customers. The retail buyer has to want it, and the licensor has to approve it. The style guide, the artist's estate, the club or the foundation all see every design before a factory does. Most design help is good at one of those. A graphic designer can make the art sing and miss the category, the cost or the construction. A technical shop can spec the garment and flatten the property into a logo on a chest. Designland has designed licensed programs for twenty years, working for licensees shipping into national retailers and directly for brands running licensed collaborations. We know what a style guide allows, how an approval submission should be packaged, and how to turn a licensor's art direction into product that still hits its price.
What we deliver
From style guide to sell-in.
Everything a licensed program needs between signing the license and writing the order, done in-house by one studio.
Artwork true to the style guide
Placement graphics, all-over prints and artwork adapted from the licensor's style guide or an artist's archive. Each piece is redrawn for its print method, fabric and cost, without drifting off-brand.
Licensed line architecture
Which categories, silhouettes and price points the property belongs in, planned against your retailer and the category rights your license actually grants.
CADs & approval-ready boards
Presentation-quality CAD boards that show the licensor exactly what will be made. They read like the finished garment, not a flat sketch, so concept approval goes faster.
Tech packs & factory follow-through
Specs, points of measure, artwork placement and colorways, followed through pre-production and production samples, so what ships matches what was approved.
Co-branded packaging & in-store graphics
Hang tags, labels, retail packaging and in-store graphics that carry the licensor's required marks and legal lines, designed for the shelf they will actually sit on.
Line sheets & sell-in decks
The line sheets and buyer decks your sales team takes to retail, built from approved artwork, so every piece they sell is one the licensor has already signed off.
Why licensees work with us
Licensed programs fail in the gaps. We work in them.
01
Designed for both approvals
Every design is built to pass the licensor's review and to earn a place on the buyer's floor. Those are two different tests, and a line has to pass both.
02
Art drawn to be made
We turn an artist's work or a club crest into product across screen print, embroidery, jacquard, sublimation and hard goods, and it still looks like the property when it comes off the line.
03
Fewer resubmissions
Each round with the licensor costs weeks in a season with fixed ship dates. Submissions go in complete and clearly presented, with the questions answered before anyone asks them.
04
Twenty years of retail reality
We have shipped licensed programs into national retailers, so cost, minimums and price points shape the line from the first sketch, not after the factory quotes it.
Proof
Licensed programs that shipped.
A few of the properties we have taken from approval to the sales floor.
Paris Saint-Germain × CRASH × Tango Hotel
Three rights holders, one capsule. We turned CRASH's artwork into a producible range of jerseys, fleece, headwear, accessories and a skateboard deck, plus the packaging and in-store graphics. It launched at PSG's Champs-Élysées store and sold out. Read the case study
Keith Haring × Urban Outfitters
We translated licensed fine art into wearable product (socks, loungewear and underwear), plus the custom packaging it sold in. The program ran four seasons at Urban Outfitters. Read the case study
Ed Hardy men's underwear & loungewear
For the licensee: product graphics across woven boxers, trunks, boxer briefs and robes, plus the campaign and billboard art. The multi-season program sold into Macy's, Bloomingdale's and Dillard's.
Joe Boxer for a Kmart licensee
Seasonal collections across intimates, loungewear and athleisure, keeping a long-running novelty brand fresh at a mass-market cost. The program shipped hundreds of thousands of units. Read the case study
How it works
From signed license to written order.
Four steps, and you know the cost before the work starts.
1
Free 20-minute intro call
Tell us the property, the categories and the retailer you are aiming at. You will get a straight answer on whether it is a fit and roughly what it would take.
2
Strategy & Scope Session: $450
A working session, not a sales call. We review the style guide, the license's categories and your calendar, and you leave with a scoped plan and a firm cost. The $450 is credited in full against your project.
3
Design through approvals
Artwork, CADs and packaging developed and submitted to the licensor, then tech packs and sample follow-through, with each approval stage built into the calendar from day one.
4
The sell-in
Line sheets and a buyer deck built from approved art, ready for the room where the order gets written.
Frequently asked questions
Licensed apparel design, answered.
Who designs licensed apparel for licensees?
Many licensees hire an outside studio rather than build an in-house team for each property. Designland is a New York City studio that does exactly this work. We handle style-guide artwork, line planning, CADs for licensor approval, tech packs, co-branded packaging and the line sheets and decks used to sell into retail. Our licensed work includes Keith Haring for Urban Outfitters, Paris Saint-Germain × CRASH × Tango Hotel, Ed Hardy men's underwear and loungewear, and Joe Boxer.
Do you work with licensors and licensing agents, or only licensees?
Both. Licensees hire us to design the line and prepare their approval submissions. Licensors and agents bring us in when a licensee needs design support to get a program to market: the factory-ready CADs, tech packs and sell-in materials that a new or smaller licensee often does not have in-house.
Can you work from a licensor's style guide or an artist's archive?
Yes, that is where most licensed work starts. We design inside the style guide's rules for marks, color, lock-ups and usage. We also work from original artwork held by an artist's estate or a museum, adapting it for garments without changing what makes it recognizable.
How do licensor approvals fit into the timeline?
Most licensors review at several stages: concept or artwork, pre-production sample and production sample. We plan those rounds into the calendar from the start and send submissions in complete, because every resubmission eats into a season with fixed ship dates.
Do you secure licenses or negotiate royalties?
No. Designland is a design and development studio, not a licensing agency, and we do not broker deals. If you are still pitching a licensor for a property, we can build the concept presentation that shows them what your line would look like.
Do you design licensed products beyond apparel?
Yes. Alongside apparel, we have designed licensed socks, underwear, loungewear, headwear, bags and accessories, plus retail packaging and in-store graphics. We also designed a full Betty Boop bath, body and gift program that ran from concept and naming through packaging, line sheets and a retail planogram.
What does it cost, and how do we start?
Start with a free 20-minute intro call. If it is a fit, the next step is a $450 Strategy & Scope Session, a working session that produces a scoped plan and a firm cost. The $450 is credited in full against the project if you go ahead. Project pricing depends on the number of styles and how much of the chain, from artwork to sell-in, is in scope. The studio also works on monthly retainers for licensees running continuous seasonal development.
More From Designland
You have the license. Let's build the line.
Tell us the property, the categories and the retailer. Twenty minutes, no charge, and a straight answer about what it would take.
Book a Free 20-Minute Call