Evergreen

I'm gonna take this moment
And make it last forever

In a commercial context, evergreen product is merchandise that is not "seasonal" – it can be sent to shelves for an extended period without needing to be refreshed or updated. For Transformers, this means product that is "franchiseless", not tied any any flavor-of-the-year brand like a cartoon or movie.

After the live-action film series catapulted Transformers back into the public consciousness, deliberately evergreen products became increasingly common throughout the early 2010s, typically for licensed merchandise or for ancillary, value-oriented Hasbro toys. These products would typically borrow key art from a scattershot assortment of sources, such as various Generations toylines and the Legends card game.

Eventually, Hasbro moved to align these sorts of products under a unified evergreen aesthetic, and began implementing a purpose-made set of Generation-1-inspired character designs, created by Emiliano Santalucia, for use on all-and-sundry licensed and in-house products. They first debuted in late 2016, without fanfare, in IDW Publishing's Generation 1 comic line, before showing up on a wider variety of merchandise during 2017.

Products incorporating evergreen character designs

Fiction

I'm gonna give my heart away
And pray we'll stay together

IDW Publishing's Generation 1 comic line began introducing evergreen character designs in the aftermath of the 2016 Revolution crossover event. The implementation was last-minute enough that at least one cover had to be redrawn by the artist to incorporate Optimus's evergreen design. Designs have been introduced as follows: