Ok, so our 2008 Search Engine College t-shirts were somewhat, um… uninspiring. I blame the fact that I had only two hours to get a design in to our printing company in order to get the order filled before SMX Sydney.
Unfortunately, it showed. The free tees weren’t exactly jumping off the booth counter at the conference. Apart from the design being *yawn* boring, part of the problem was that conference attendees are either industry vets or skilled SEO staff who felt that wearing a “class of 2008″ t-shirt might make them seem like industry newbies.
Now I’ve seen lots of witty and irreverent conference tshirt designs around the place and I know we can do better. So this is where you guys come in. We are looking for some inspirational designs for our 2009 Search Engine College t-shirt. You can suggest a design within the comments of this blog and I’ll set up a poll for readers to vote for the winner some time next month.
The person behind the winning design will be announced on this blog and receive enrollment in a Certification Pathway of their choice at Search Engine College, plus a t-shirt sporting their design [plus a pass to SMX Sydney if they happen to be based in Oz – see below].
The winning design will be printed on our t-shirts scheduled for distribution to all attendees at SMX Sydney 2009. Any leftover shirts will be issued to students who graduate from our Certification Pathways in 2009.
Grab the blank tshirt front / back and the SEC logo and go play.
Competition rules are as follows:
1) Your design or slogan should be suggested within the comments of this blog. You can link to a design on your own site or simply suggest a slogan in your comment.
2) Designs need to work on a white tshirt and should be no more than 2 colors.
3) The SEC logo and/or URL should appear somewhere in the design (on the back is fine)
4) Keep it clean. Unfortunately, some conference attendees and some of our students, may be offended by the use of curse words. If you need to curse, use an asterisk to censor your design somewhat. (Grrrr, I know I know).
5) Apart from the restriction of 4) your design can be as witty and creative as you like.
6) Entries close on Friday 6 February 2009.
7) 5 finalists will be chosen by staff of Search Engine College and blog readers will be given the opportunity to vote for their favorite finalists via a poll to be announced the week commencing 9 February 2009.
8 ) The final design winner will be announced on Monday 16 February 2009.
Good luck all!
STOP PRESS : If the winner of the t-shirt design competition happens to live in Australia, the very generous Barry Smyth has kindly donated a free conference pass to SMX Sydney 2009 for her/him (see comments on this post). Thanks Barry!
STOP PRESS 2 : Because some people have expressed an interest in submitting a t-shirt design but need a little more time, we’ve decided to extend the design submission deadline until EDT midnight on Monday 9 February.
Not very original, I know, but on the front and on the back, with the logo on the chest to the left…
Also something like this:
Search Engine Obliteration… You’re Doing it Right
Or:
Not wearing any hat now. On vacation.
Or (very typical):
I’m with a blackhatter ->
I will let you know if I have more suggestions.
Cheers!
Oh, I am afraid my first suggestion went astray… < SEO > and < / SEO > is what I meant
Search Engine College – THE place to go for the best SEO keggers, er, uh, education.
(with keggers being crossed out w/ a strikethrough)
I’ve actually done a design for the front and back had a play with a new logo kept to the design brief of 2 colours. click on my name it goes strait to the design
Hi Kal, The winner (if they are based in Australia) gets a Free Ticket to attend SMX Sydney 2009, sorry to our international aspirants. Cheers Barry
@Barry Woohoo! Just caught this. Looks like we have a new incentive to all you t-shirt designers out there. Thanks Barry, I’ll add this news to the post.
@Steve Very cool! Thanks for your submission
What about “Search Engine College students have more followers” on front with logo on back?
@Dennis – cute! Thanks for that
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Logo at the back
Hmmm… how about on the front:
“No, I do NOT work for Google…”
and then on the back:
“… thanks to SEC, Google works for ME!”
and then http://www.searchenginecollege.com underneath?
For some reason my copy of GIMP on the work PC is playing up, so I can’t put the slogans on the shirt templates, but as soon as I’m home I’ll fire up the Photoshop and update my comment with a link to a mockup. The slogan pretty much says it all though
@Burgo I dig that one! But just realized that GG prob won’t appreciate us using their brand on our shirts. And they will be at SMX so….
I had thought before about using “Search Engine College Student” on the front, with the geek slogan “No I will NOT fix your computer” on the back? Or maybe one of you clever people can come up with a similar idea relating more specifically to the search industry?
Ok a few more ideas submitted from staff (but not relevant to win prizes!)
– SEC students gain more followers
– Future SEO Rock Star
– I’d rather be studying @ Search Engine College
– Don’t be To Cuil For SEO School
)
– Learn To Put Yourself on Top (I got like 19 variations of “on top” that’d all work
– SEO, SEM, PPC, ROI – Do you wanna learn to speak Search?
Yet another source for ideas: http://www.acquisio.com/blog/new-acquisio-t-shirts-get-yours-while-theyre-hot/
Ok, so here’s another option. On the front of the shirt:
See the image here
Yep, it still uses the work Google, but surely in a way they couldn’t argue with?
And then, on the back, the SEC url?
@Michael – yeah yeah, more “on top” ideas please
@Burgo – I love it! We might be able to get away with that one.
Thanks guys, Can’t wait to put these to the reader poll
Just thought of another, on the front: “I like to be on top…” and on the back: “of the search engines” followed by the SEC logo?
[…] Hi there – it looks like you’re the first person to view this page. Congratulations! Relax, I’m kidding. But seriously, if you like what you read, I’d really appreciate it if you could subscribe to my feed, if only to make me feel more popular :-)Just a reminder that there are only 9 hours left to submit your design suggestions for our 2009 Search Engine College t-shirt design competition. […]
What about using the little boy image like on your article library? http://www.searchenginecollege.com/articles/article-library.htm
Ok, I’ve come up with my own potential design. Obviously I’m ineligible to win the prizes, but I’ll still throw it into the reader poll just to make things interesting. (To make things fair, if my design wins the poll then we’ll award the prizes to the second place holder.) Front: http://www.ask-kalena.com/images/smx-tee-front.jpg Back: http://www.ask-kalena.com/images/smx-tee-back.jpg
Love the design but using the image on the front doesn’t that use more then 2 colors?
How about…
Front: http://blog.sitemost.com.au/smx-tee-front-1.jpg
Back: http://blog.sitemost.com.au/smx-tee-back-1.jpg
@Steve – If it’s a black and white image, I think the whole thing should still only be 2 colours – black and green (and white b/g), but I’ll check
@Pete – love it love it LOVE it! great job
Thank you ladies and gentlemen, entries have now closed. I will post a poll listing the finalists shortly!
Just a note that we have allowed one late entry because of the work and thought that went into it and because it was only a couple of hours late:
http://rebusiness.com.au/2009/02/searchenginecollegecom-t-shirt-concept/ Thanks Andrew
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Love the design but using the image on the front doesn’t that use more then 2 colors?
Nope.