For the final season of Stranger Things, Netflix partnered with Gatorade to create a fully integrated marketing campaign. Set in 1987—a peak era for Gatorade—the brand was written directly into the show’s script, cementing its role in the story world. Our team developed limited-edition bottles, retail experiences, capsule collections, social and digital assets, immersive events, and custom influencer kits for pro athletes. My primary contributions focused on the capsule collections and the design of the influencer kits.

Gatorade X Stranger Things
Collaboration

Art Direction, Design & Illustration

Gatorade Design Team — Leon Imas, CJ Jimerson, Quentin Brehler, Tony Vitali, JuYoung Kim, Angel Buckens, Evan McDonnell, Joey Ochoa, Lauren Currier.

360 Marketing Campaign

The objective of this campaign was to remind the world that Gatorade is the O.G. Sports Drink through culturally disruptive partnerships. Below are some examples of some of the wide range of work put into this project.

Capsule Collections —
Vintage Merch Drops

For this Stranger Things collaboration we created two capsules with vintage merch. The goal of the capsule kit was to come up with apparel straight out of the 80’s era and also fit within the Stranger Things universe.

Vintage T-Shirt Design

This example above highlights one of our t-shirt exploration paths inspired by the Hero’s Journey framework. The first concept centers on a core narrative mechanic—Eleven using telekinesis to reach for a Gatorade, symbolically fueling her powers. Incorporating Vecna’s hand strengthens the storytelling and reinforces the ‘One Final Battle’ motif. We explored multiple aesthetic directions and continuously refined the artwork to shape a more compelling visual narrative.

We took the process from the previous slide and blew it out across so many different ideas from vintage ads, 80’s inspired graphics, Hawkins High School, the gang, Demogorgans, and so much more.

One of the challenges was working hard to get Netflix approvals and designing around legal complications, such as featuring the whole crew vs. an individual character.

We made so so so many shirts!

This collection features all 5 of the main characters as the Retro Demo Person. Each character has an 8-bit aesthetic applied to them along with a vintage Gatorade logo and slogan.This 8-bit treatment was inspired by an actual Gatorade ad from the 1980s. The idea was that these would be randomly placed into kits and would become rare collectibles.

The final shirt design was inspired by a vintage P.E t-shirt. It features a custom inner label, limited edition collaboration logos, and a woven jock tag.

We found the relationship with sports between Gatorade and Hawkins High School to be immediately recognizable. The shirt is off-white with distressed graphics to emphasize its wear and tear. We looked at several different shirt weights and colors to get the perfect look and feel.

Retro Jacket Design

For the jacket, we explored several options and the classic bomber jacket felt perfect. We wanted to push the duality of worlds within this jacket so for this first option we have a reversible jacket. The Hawkins High School version has the Hawkins Tiger on the back biting into a Gatorade Squeeze bottle. The jacket is then reversed to emphasize the dark upside down world. The options on the right explore similar themes, but are a more authentic representation of that era.

The final design features an authentic satin bomber jacket that feels straight out of that time period. The exterior features a Hawkins High School patch as if this belongs to one of the athletes at the school.

The interior features a shot of the gang in The Upside Down. This inner liner is where the concept really comes together and expresses this duality of worlds.

The end result is a vintage authentic feel chalked full of discoverable easter eggs.

Final Capsule Collections

Here are the final Retro Capsules, which include a jacket or t-shirt, a towel, and a limited-edition bottle. For the Tier 1 Drop, the shipper design pulls straight from Gatorade’s roots, using artwork inspired by a vintage Gatorade ad and paired with Stranger Things–themed messaging: “Caution: Contains psychokinetic energy to fuel the extraordinary.” The towel design references the classic alphabet lights from Season 1 of Stranger Things—the ones Winona Ryder’s character used to communicate across dimensions. Rounding out the capsule is a limited run of 1,100 glass bottles, a subtle nod to Eleven, making each bottle a collectible blend of retro Gatorade heritage and Stranger Things lore.