[JaneYoung]

418 seems to continually add to our repertoire. We have a logo that is recognizable and is always on the shirt but the shirts seem to evolve and change. We have tee shirts, polos, and we've recently added a Hawaiian-style shirt with a mixed pattern of our logo and different robots. We place our tee shirt order very early in the fall semester in preparation for the community outreach efforts and for various competitions. Our next order coming up will be the polos. We wear those as a team on the days that members of the team have a presentation to make at Texas BEST or for the Chairman's Award or in meetings with sponsors/VIPs. By wearing the polos as a team, we want our presentation team to know that we are supporting their efforts. The tee shirts have become our generic shirts for travel, practice days, demos, and S.M.A.R.T. Camps. Our Hawaiian shirt is still evolving. We used it last year at the Dallas Regional on Saturday. Saturdays can be very intense but they are also a lot of fun and I think the Hawaiian shirts reflect that.

It's hard not to want to create new shirts because the team is full of creative people who are always thinking. The constraints that we deal with are the family budgets and what they are willing to spend on shirts, the branding aspect of the design, and the overall appearance as a unified team. When we travel, we ask that veteran members pack extra and share with the newer members at the event. We make sure that the members keep track of who borrowed/loaned what and it works out. Then as the new members become veterans, they are asked to share with the new members as needed. It's become a cycle of helping our team keep ourselves unified and branded in a happy way.

We've made some poor choices, too. The years that we decide to use gray for our main tee shirt color never works. There are those of us who shall remain anonymous *cough* who love to use the gray. It doesn't work because we are known for our purple branding. In the end, the gray shirts usually become travel shirts or Throw Back shirts and we stick with purple and with our logo. One last thought - we get busy so early in the school year that we ask/tell our new team members to wear a plain purple shirt to the events until they can borrow or purchase a team shirt. That works, too.

I like this topic. It's fun.
Jane