Florida State Wants You to Help Design Their Athletics Tee

It's a big deal to wear the jersey.

Why? I think it comes down to being one of the few lucky enough to wear a uniform with your school's name on it - dead center, in front of the world. As a student-athlete, you are a representative of your school -- not just of today but of the past (alums) and the future (recruits). It's a lot of responsibility and it makes an impact on you.

But how can a university make this into a bigger deal for their student body, alumni, and fans? Florida State University developed a way for everyone to play a role.

It all starts on the Florida State Athletics Page, shown below.

Im going to zoom in on that right-hand column of touts, here.




We'll turn our attention to "You Design, We'll Decide." Clicking in takes us here, to the magic. As you will see below, this is your chance to submit a design for the FSU all-sport promotional shirt. (You still have almost a full week to go -- so design away once you finish this read!)

The steps are laid out clearly - download a template, design away, sign a release, and submit.

I'll be interested in following this, because it opens the door for fans to have a voice in how the athletics department presents itself to the world.

But how could this be better? First, I think we need context - emotional context. What do I mean by that? What is the "all-sport promotional tee?" Do the players wear these? Do they sell them? What have they looked like in the past? What if FSU went deeper -- asking players and coaches to provide a brief for what they'd love to see in a shirt. If you're a diehard FSU fan, there's not much more cool than getting a brief from your coach (or players) and then setting out to solve it!!!

Secondly, FSU should make the assets available. Make it easier to design for you by providing high res logos, images, colors, fonts -- anything you can do to allow designers to not have to search around for tools.

Finally, I'd love to see a plan for unveiling these. Maybe it will be at media day - where the designer will be a VIP? Or maybe at the first football game? Giving access to the team(s) for the best designer adds a dimension only FSU can deliver!!!

Great stuff today, with more coming later in the week. Feel free to follow along via Facebook (here) or Twitter (I'm @andypawlowski, here)

Thanks.

Andy