July 11, 2023
The Making of
Clippy Helps Hamilton 📎
Real talk: I found designing merch for Hamilton extremely daunting. This is a huge musical that everyone and their mom knows, and there’s already a ton of merch for it. So I avoided designing it for the plague.
In August 2021, a friend invited Stephen and I to watch the dress rehearsal in San Francisco. We had seen the show live before, but this was the first time watching a dress rehearsal. We knew were in for something special.
So the show started and this time, the song Take A Break hits different especially that grammar exchange between Angelica and Hamilton. When the song ended, I nudged Stephen and said, “I have an idea!!”
“It’s the comma! We have to emphasize the comma. But what if it’s Clippy?” So we sketched it out when we got home to see if it’d work. And yes, that is Larry the Cucumber in the corner lol 🥒🍅
ICYMI, Clippy was the virtual assistant on Microsoft Word. He was annoying, somewhat helpful when I was doing homework, and forever dead in the eyes. Tbh, who better to call out Hamilton on his trifling ways? So I mocked him up with the song lyrics in the oh so much familiar Word fonts and colors.
In 2021, we released Clippy Helps Hamilton as a sticker. He quickly became the bestselling sticker in the shop and he always gets the biggest laugh whenever we sell-in person. Three years later, after much fan demand and sizing tests, we released Clippy Helps Hamilton as an enamel pin.
I am incredibly proud of how he turned out, and it truly warms my heart when someone smiles or chuckles when they get the joke. Long live Clippy! Thanks for reading ❤️
