Culture Studio x AS Colour – a tour merch collab built from blank to finished piece, with every decoration step shown.

Every great tour shirt follows the same formula: a bold front, a back print that lists the cities, and a few details that only true fans notice. We teamed up with AS Colour to put that formula to work – and to show exactly how tour merch gets made, start to finish.

The result is a two-piece collab: the AS Colour 5082 Heavy Faded Tee and the 5159 Relax Active Hood, decorated with screen printing, puff specialty ink, standard embroidery, and embossed embroidery. Instead of tour dates, the back print lists every Culture Studio location and AS Colour showroom.

Below is the full breakdown – the blanks, the print and embroidery choices, and why each decoration landed where it did. If you’re building your own tour merch, steal this playbook.

It works.

In This Guide

1 The collab: two brands, one tour
2 The blanks: why we picked these two
3 Tee front: tonal print + puff ink script
4 The tour back print
5 Hoodie front: embossed embroidery
6 The globe logo: sleeve and chest embroidery
7 How to build your own tour merch

Section 1

The Collab: Two Brands, One Tour

AS Colour has been making premium blanks since 2005. Culture Studio has been decorating them since 2008. AS Colour supplied the garments, we handled every decoration and documented each stage on our Chicago production floor.

The brief was simple: treat the collab like a band going on tour. Tour merch is one of the most recognizable formats in apparel – big front graphic, city list on the back, a small badge somewhere unexpected. We kept the format and swapped the content for the two brands’ real-world footprint.

Section 2

The Blanks: Why We Picked These Two

Decoration only looks as good as the garment under it. We built the drop on two AS Colour styles:

• 5082 Heavy Faded Tee – a heavyweight tee with a pre-faded, lived-in finish. It reads vintage out of the box, which is exactly what tour merch should feel like.
• 5159 Relax Active Hood – a relaxed-fit hood with a dense, smooth face. That surface is what makes embossed embroidery possible on the front.

Pairing a faded tee with a clean, deep-toned hood gives the collection range. Same artwork system, two very different textures. If you want to explore other blanks, our catalog carries AS Colour alongside the rest of our lineup.

Section 3

Tee Front: Tonal Print + Puff Ink Script

The front of the tee carries the collab lockup: a heavy block “CULTURE” with “ascolour” in script cutting across it. The block letters are screen printed tone-on-tone – a dark grey ink on the faded grey tee.

The script is where it gets interesting. We printed “ascolour” in puff ink – a specialty ink that rises off the garment when it’s cured, leaving a soft, raised, 3D finish. Flat block letters underneath, raised script on top. Two layers you can see and feel.

Why it works: tour merch people actually wear on off days is rarely loud. Tonal color keeps the graphic big without shouting, and the puff gives it texture instead of volume.

Puff ink needs bold, clean linework to rise evenly – hairline strokes can collapse or fill in. That’s why we check script weights against our artwork guidelines before anything goes to screen.

Section 4

The Tour Back Print

This is the piece that makes it tour merch. Both the tee and the hoodie carry the same full-back screen print, built like a classic tour date list:

• Header: the CULTURE / ascolour lockup, with EST. 2008 and EST. 2005 on either side
• Culture Studio locations: Chicago, IL – Daytona Beach, FL – Chula Vista, CA – Nashville, TN
• The badge: a globe-style CS x ASC logo in the center
• AS Colour showrooms: New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Europe, city by city
• The sign-off: “Built to last. We’ll take care of it.”

Instead of tour dates, the back lists where each brand lives. It’s the same format fans already know, used to tell a brand story. That’s the trick for any collab or company merch: borrow a format people love and fill it with your own facts.

Small type on a full back print takes clean art and tight registration. That’s why we always proof city-list layouts at actual size before burning screens.

Section 5

Hoodie Front: Embossed Embroidery

The hoodie front is the craft flex. “CULTURE” is stitched as embossed embroidery – a raised, sculpted outline that pushes the lettering up off the fabric. Done tone-on-tone, it reads as texture first and logo second.

Directly under it sits the CS x ASC globe logo in standard flat embroidery, also tonal. Raised letters on top, flat badge below – two embroidery techniques stacked in one composition.

Why only on the hoodie? Embossing needs a heavier, stable fabric to hold its shape and stay comfortable. On fleece it looks premium and wears well. On a thinner tee, a heavy embossed panel can feel stiff against the body – so on the tee, we moved the embroidery to a smaller hit on the sleeve.

Section 6

The Globe Logo: Sleeve and Chest Embroidery

The CS x ASC globe is the thread that ties the collection together. It shows up three ways: center of the back print, under the embossed CULTURE on the hoodie, and embroidered on the tee sleeve.

A sleeve hit is the detail that turns a good shirt into merch people collect. It’s small, it’s unexpected, and it gives the tee a second brand moment without crowding the front. We digitized the globe once and ran it across both garments, so the mark stays identical no matter where it lands.

Section 7

How to Build Your Own Tour Merch

Whether you’re an artist heading out on the road, a label planning a run, or a brand doing a collab, the playbook is the same. Here’s what we’d tell anyone starting from scratch:

We make tour merch for artists, labels, and brands every day out of our shops in Chicago, Daytona Beach, Chula Vista, and Nashville. See how we work with music clients on our enterprise page, or grab our decoration guide to compare every method side by side.

Thanks to the AS Colour team for helping create these designs and providing the premium blanks.