School pride enters wardrobes

College students are working to make the College of Arts and Sciences as recognizable a brand as Wharton — at least, on their T-shirts.

The school’s Dean’s Advisory Board is calling for student artists to design a T-shirt that specifically advocates the College — and the winning design will be sold in the Penn Bookstore.

“While Wharton, Engineering and even Nursing students often wear apparel specific to their undergraduate schools, College students usually stick with generic Penn apparel or none at all,” said DAB member and College junior David Frankenfield.

DAB hopes to establish a better sense of “institutional identity” with the contest, he added. “This goes to the DAB’s larger purpose of promoting the College and giving students more stake in its brand.”

Still, most of the apparel sold at the Bookstore displays the Penn brand, rather than that of a specific school, according to Business Services Associate Vice President Chris Bradie.

“Our emphasis has been to promote Penn as one university, rather than specific schools within,” Bradie said. “This is very important to the University’s branding strategy.”

Even so, College sophomore Yue Xu, who plans to submit a design of her own, said she likes the idea of having a shirt unique to the College.

Xu recalled wondering during New Student Orientation “why College students didn’t get College T-shirts” while Wharton, Engineering and Nursing students received free school-specific T-shirts.

The contest also aims to “facilitate a better relationship between the Bookstore and students,” Frankenfield said, “by giving students more creative input into the apparel being sold to them.”

While the Bookstore has received feedback from students on apparel designs and styles in the past, “this is the first time that we have partnered on an actual design competition totally driven by student talent,” said Bradie.

He agreed that the contest will help give students more direct involvement in designing their apparel. “We’re interested to see what students come up with and to find out whether the new styles will be popular,” he said.

The winning design will immediately go into production after the submission deadline on Jan. 13. The winner will receive a $100 gift certificate to the Bookstore and a free shirt, Frankenfield said. The shirt will also be displayed on a table inside the store.

DAB is looking forward to “the tremendous creativity of College students on display in the Bookstore,” he added, “and we hope, in their wardrobes.”

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