YEAR:
2025
ROLE:
Lead Designer & Creative Marketing Manager
DELIVERABLES:
Community Activation, Out-Of-Home Experience, Vendor Coordination
CREDITS:
Out-of-Home Design
overview.
H&H Americas is the fiber & craft industry's largest North American trade event, and 2025 was not a quiet year to show up. Premier Yarns was celebrating its 20th anniversary, and debuting it's newest licensed yarn partnership line, ELLE By Me. Additionally, Premier Yarns was the sponsor of the event's Creator Summit, co-produced with GoSadi, including speaker panels, maker workshops, and a live activation on the show floor.
As a sponsor for this key event, Premier had to show up with intention. I brought the anchor: Shayla Palmer, a crochet artist with 600K Instagram followers, already viral for crocheting six-foot statues out of Premier's own Parfait XL. She was the most credible person in the space to introduce new colorways to a room full of makers.
challenges.
The Creator Summit audience was exactly the audience that Premier Yarns was looking to connect with: engaged makers, content creators, and wholesale buyers who influence what the broader community buys and makes. Because the audience was so broad, the activation had to feel organic, not sponsored. Because Shayla was already a loyal Premier customer who had built her following using the yarn, the community trusted her, and as a result, they trusted the product. That alignment made the partnership work from the initial concept call, all the way through final delivery.
design choices.
I framed Shayla's involvement in Premier's presence at the trade show around three touchpoints:
1. At the "Meet & Greet" lunch, Shayla debuted her never-before-seen six foot tall crochet horse – crocheted entirely from brand new colorways and real lumber, shipped white-glove style all the way from Atlanta to Chicago in one piece.
2. Next, Shayla took the time to meet up with and talk yarn with the Creator Summit attendees, providing each attendee with valuable crochet tips, tricks, and Premier Yarns x ELLE By Me merchandise, designed exclusively for attendees of the Creator Summit.
3. Additionally, Shayla ran an Instagram takeover on the Premier Yarns account during the show, further extending the activation beyond the show floor.
results.
The Summit's branded merch suite was designed by me specifically for the people in the room. Makers and creators showing up to the Summit would be coming with hundreds of ideas and projects in progress, leading to a notebook and matching pen for jotting down ideas and pattern notes. The full bleed patterned tote was large enough to carry multiple skeins, tools, and any other swag or brand merch they came across while on the show floor. Lastly, the maze game was a fun addition to round out the experience, intended for the hands that can't sit still, but maybe couldn't knit or crochet. I made sure that every merch item had a reason to be included, prioritizing higher cost items over choices that may be tossed in the bin when returning home.
