The Pokémon Company Headphones

One day I received an email with the subject line “The Pokémon Company Collaboration?”. I get reached out to a lot by licensing companies that just look to sell the use of popular brand names, which we always say no to (though we appreciate the thought). I didn’t get my hopes up when I saw this email come in.

When I clicked the sender though, it had come from an @pokemon.com email address. I immediately got flashbacks to hoping I got a good report card so I’d have leverage in asking my parents for Pokémon cards. I had to take a seat.

After almost two years of collaborating, The Pokémon Company x Grado Labs headphones were a real thing. For The Pokémon Company’s 25th anniversary, we worked on and designed four pairs for the Pokémon Audio Collection: metal Poké Ball, wooden Poké Ball, black metal Pikachu, and silver metal Pikachu headphones.

Below are photos of the process and final headphones.

Some of these photos can also be found in my series of commercial work.