Students wondered what color, design and logo would adorn The Shirt 2014 as they stood waiting for the grand unveiling outside the Hammes Notre Dame Bookstore enjoying free food and cheerleading performances.
The unveiling ceremony, which takes place each year on the day before the Blue-Gold Spring Game, began at 6 p.m.
Students who bought The Shirt after the ceremony received a 15 percent discount on up to two Shirts.
This year’s shirt features the outside and inside of the football stadium on the front and back of The Shirt, respectively. The Shirt 2014 is heather blue made with a 60 percent cotton and 40 percent polyester blend, sophomore Camden Hill, The Shirt executive committee’s designer, said.
Hill said an obstacle designers faced was deciding on a concept. He said designers had to first design the 25th anniversary logo before proceeding to work on the design of The Shirt.
“From a design standpoint, I think we were trying to do something new this year but not radically different from the previous years. We had to keep it consistent with kind of the image The Shirt has created, but we were looking into different things,” Hill said. “We wanted try a different color and we thought the 25th anniversary would be a great time to try a new fabric as well. The heathered fabric gives it a unique look, unlike the two previous blues.”
Hill said unlike the previous years where The Shirt focused on certain players, this year’s shirt focused on the stadium.
Junior John Wetzel, president of The Shirt executive committee, said, “Coach Kelly has had tremendous success at home during his time as a head coach, which is why we thought it was appropriate to feature the stadium as the main focus in this years shirt. With the design on the back we were hoping to [portray] all the pieces of the full Notre Dame football experience by including the band, the fans and the players.”
Wetzel said an obstacle was making sure that the timing of the unveiling was perfect. They had to coordinate Brian Kelly’s arrival, the committee members changing into their shirts, the band being prepped play while also coordinating online and social media releases, he said.
The unveiling ceremony coordinators senior Catherine Simonson and sophomore Catherine Williams spearheaded the majority of planning and coordination of the performances for the actual unveiling ceremony, Wetzel said.
The committee expects to sell around 20,000 shirts in the first day, Wetzel said.
As for improvements for next year’s planning process, Hill said, “I thought what could’ve benefitted us was nailing down a more specific concept initially. We were a little nebulous going into the design process, and we thought we were more specific than we were. … In retrospect, it would’ve been better to have a better more solid understanding of the concept before designing the shirt.”
Hill said he has noticed a generally positive reaction to this year’s shirt design.
“I take the anonymous Twitter comments to be the most telling, because they have nothing to lose; they aren’t trying to appease me, and even from those, I’ve heard a lot of good and positive feedback,” Hill said.
