On Wednesday, June 4th 2025, we were back with one of our favorite events of the year - the annual FATE Student Showcase! Our 9th graders developed marketing and advertising campaigns for Merit and our 10th graders designed a Merit product collection.
Videography By: Alex Buksdorf
INTRODUCTION
Each year our 9th and 10th grade FATE cohorts participate in an end-of-year capstone project where they put their skills in business, entrepreneurship, marketing, and design-thinking to practice! Five 9th grade teams were asked to create a Marketing and Advertising Campaign for Merit (our cause-based fashion brand) which included a 60-second commercial, a print advertisement, and a pitch presentation. A panel of expert judges in the PR and marketing field was tasked with declaring the winner - securing them a $200 cash prize and the use of their campaign for Merit’s promotions! Our 10th graders were split into four teams to develop a Merit Product Collection. These collections were on display trade show booth style and available for presale at the Student Showcase and virtually for the two weeks following. The team with the most pre-sales was declared the winner, awarding them a $300 cash prize and the production and sale of their full collection by Merit!
Grade 10: Design a Merit Product Collection
In February, our sophomores began their Grade 10 Capstone Project: Designing a Merit Product Collection. After splitting into 4 project teams, and working to understand their task of developing a collection for Merit to be put on display at the annual Student Showcase, our 10th Graders all spent the last few months creating unique aesthetics and visual identities with their teams to bring their perfect product collections to life.
Let’s meet our Grade 10 Project Teams:
Above All Matter
Team Members: Carter, Jaden, Jai-Lynn, Aaliyah, Olivia, and Navia
Collection Theme: “Culture Ready”
Graphic Designer: Scott Everett
About the Collection: “Culture Ready represents Detroit’s love of its culture. Detroit is a city with a rich culture, and we as a community can embrace it, the good and the bad. Culture Ready embodies the Merit brand because Merit is made in Detroit, and Merit loves to give back to the city and the next generation of culture creators.”
New Horizons
Team Members: D’Andre, Jason, Makayla, Makalani, and Isaiah
Collection Theme: “New Opportunities”
Graphic Designer: Kristle Marshall
No Stress
Team Members: Otis, Ariyale, Jordynn, DeAngelo, and Cenceir
Collection Theme: “Your Future Your Choice”
Graphic Designer: Karl Nilsson
YOUR OWN GREATNESS (YOG)
Team Members: Payton, Jaidyn, Jadah, Elijah, and Armontia
Collection Theme: “Dress For Success”
Graphic Designer: Kirah Price
About the Collection: “What does success mean to you? To us success means to feel confident in your own skin and empowered in the clothes you wear. Our collection fosters self confidence by allowing customers to Dress For Success while living in YOUR OWN GREATNESS.”
ABOUT THE GRADE 10 CAPSTONE PROJECT
Developing a Theme, Design Concepts & Creative Brief
To begin creating a product collection, each team needed to pick a theme that would guide the designs in their collection. It was important that each theme not only had a name, but a clear connection to the Merit brand and its target customers that each member of the team would be able to describe.
To assist in this process, we partnered with Carhartt where our students spent the day in their design center working directly with their creative team! Students learned about designing for a consumer, took a tour of the Carhartt building, and spent time fleshing out their collection themes.
With a collection theme chosen, each team developed 5 design concept ideas and worked on a “creative brief” that outlined the aesthetic, design elements, colors, and inspiration images that helped guide their design process. For example, team YOG identified the theme “Dress For Success” which aimed to remind customers of the greatness within them and help them feel successful every time they put on a piece from the collection, no matter where they are or what they’re doing. When they thought about how this theme could be communicated visually, they centered on objects and design elements that mark “success” or echo “greatness”, while also being appropriate for any setting, and settled on elements like trophies, crowns, and stars. They paired those ideas with phrases like “Your Own Greatness” and “Finesse Your Success”, which encourage the wearer to take action towards their success and remember the potential within them.
Product Designs
Each team was assigned a graphic designer - Scott Everett, Kristle Marshall, Karl Nilsson, or Kirah Price - who worked closely with their team to understand their collection theme and brought each team’s vision to life. In addition to creating the 5 design concepts, each team got to decide which product they wanted in their collection, the color of both product and the graphics, and the design placement.
Creating a Trade Show Booth Display
We produce a sample collection for each team which is on display during the annual Student Showcase event and available for pre-sale. To create these trade show booth displays, we partner with Creative Solutions Group (CSG) - a full service experiential marketing company. During the excursion workshop with CSG, students get a chance to design their own trade show booth poster. Special shout out to Kori, Dan, Tom, and the rest of the CSG team for your support!
Collection Sales Pitch
Right before the Student Showcase, our students practice a collection sales pitch to familiarize themselves with their product collection theme, collection story and design concept details so they are prepared to attract customers and make the sale! Before this process starts, we partnered with Chick-Fil-A (Southfield) for a workshop centered on customer service where students learn about identifying who their customers are, how to give great service, why it’s so important, and how to handle complaints.
2025 STUDENT SHOWCASE - GRADE 10
During the 2025 Student Showcase, the Grade 10 teams had their product collections on display for pre-sale as they interacted with a variety of customers! The goal was to not only showcase their creativity and hard work - but to get the most pre-sales. As each team competed against one another, they had to focus on grabbing the customers attention by describing what makes their product unique and the message behind their designs.
It was so inspiring to see our students transform into sales experts, and, for many of them, come out of their comfort zone to welcome customers to their displays and lead them through their collections. One of our sophomores - Jordynn - was especially impressive on the trade show floor. Throughout the capstone project process, Jordynn was vocal about her anxiety around customer service and one-on-one conversations with strangers, even up to the minutes before the Student Showcase began. To everyone’s surprise and delight, when customers started walking around, Jordynn changed her attitude completely and challenged herself, and her peers, to welcome customers with a bright smile and a warm introduction. Then, she went absolutely above and beyond and started going out into the crowd to find people who had yet to visit team No Stress’ display and bring them over to their collection!
It was so incredible to see Jordynn, the rest of her team, and the entirety of the sophomore class open up throughout the event and get more comfortable pitching their collection and interacting with customers as the evening went on! We are so proud of the Class of 2027, the hard work and dedication they put into designing their product collections, and the intentionality, courage, and care they showed while pitching to customers at the Student Showcase!
Additionally, at the end of the Student Showcase, the Merit Team revealed that there had been 3 Secret Shoppers in the audience, something that had never happened at the showcase before! Our sophomores had no idea that there was a bonus prize up for grabs for the team that showed the best customer services skills throughout the event. Our 3 Secret Shoppers were individuals experienced with customer service and/or deeply familiar with the 10th Grade Capstone project:
Matthew Leverett (Owner/Operator of Southfield Chick-fil-A; Facilitator of our Chick-fil-A “Collection Sales Pitch” Workshop)
Angela Wisniewski-Cobbina (Owner/Founder of Shop Coup D’état)
Von Elson (FATE Class of 2020 Alumni and winner of the 2018 10th Grade Capstone Project)
Our Secret Shoppers were tasked with interacting with the different teams and evaluating their customer service skills (while making note of some other criteria like merchandising, visuals, products, and any x factors), and came together to compare experiences and pick their winner. Unbeknownst to all of us at the time, the Secret Shopper Winner would be the SAME as the winning team of the overall pre-sale competition!
This year's secret shopper winner was...
Team No Stress with their “Your Future. Your Choice” collection!
Following the Student Showcase, all of the Grade 10 Product Collections were available for pre-sale until June 18th, 2025. While there were 4 incredible collections, only ONE team was selected as the winner based on having the most presales from June 4th - June 18th. In addition to a $300 cash prize, the winning team’s collection will be produced in FULL and sold on Merit’s website. What’s so exciting about the Grade 10 Capstone Project is that the winning team has been chosen by YOU, our Merit customers!
Who was Crowned the Winner???
The people have spoken!
The 2025 (and FIRST EVER) Secret Shopper Winning Team AND our official WINNER OF THE 2025 STUDENT SHOWCASE COMPETITION is…
No Stress - “Your Future Your Choice” Collection !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Their top selling product was their “Guiding Your Future” Tee! You can shop the entire “Your Future Your Choice” collection here:
“The Future is in Our Hands” Sweater
We are so incredibly proud of all four teams and the hard work they put into these product collections the past few months. In addition to the winning collection being produced in full and sold on Merit’s website, we have selected the top 5 selling products from the other collections that will be available as well.
Our top 5 products this year included:
YOG: Dress For Success
Above All Matter: Culture Ready
New Horizons: New Opportunities
We want to give a special thank you to this year’s incredibly talented graphic designers:
Scott Everett, Kristle Marshall, Karl Nilsson, and Kirah Price
As well as our Grade 10 Capstone Project partners which include:
Carhartt: Ben, Andrea, Patrick, Kobe, D’mitri, and Claire
Creative Solutions Group: Kori, Dan, Tom, and the rest of the CSG team!
Chick-Fil-A: Matthew
Lastly, a special thank you to our event sponsors:
And of course our FATE Mentors & the Give Merit Board, our panel of judges, and all of our incredible volunteers for the day!
Photography: Shelby Dubin
Videography: Alex Buksdorf