Get Ready to Hate Iowa State
by Nate Voss, (18 comments)
Iowa State wants you to vote on their next ugly helmet designs, to go into use in 2008. Why I initially thought this would be a fun way to help them pick the worst of the bunch and call it popular, this paragraph in the article on their webpage brought my blood to a boil.
“Several months ago, the ISU Athletics Department asked for uniform and helmet design concepts from its fans, students, professional designers or anyone else who felt they had a vision of what the Cyclones should wear on gameday. Many individuals submitted concepts and a committee of department and campus officials poured over the ideas, tweaked them and chose three “finalists” for consideration to be the new look for Iowa State football.
“We received lots of terrific concepts,” Director of Athletics Jamie Pollard said. “Although no one design was chosen, our final three options are a compilation or hybrid of several of those suggestions.”
So in short: A design “contest” to gather work designers would normally use to put food on the table, followed by mashing several concepts together to avoid giving credit to the designers they just ripped off. There is a feedback form for you to voice your opinion on the matter, but I’d like to put mine right here:
Dear Iowa State,
Go * * * * yourselves.
Comments (18)
ManBear said:
Wow, and their website really sucks as well.
Posted on August 24, 2007
Walkingstick said:
“…fans, students, professional designers or anyone else who felt they had a vision of what the Cyclones should wear on game day.”
Wow, I totally dig being lumped into such a general group of individuals, none of which the university seems to respect. To respect the fans, students, university, football players, college sports and everyone else, they should have hired a designer and should have set forth a clearly stated visual challenge which a designer could solve. Hopefully no professional designers stooped to submitting work to stagger forward this blatant disrespect of our profession.
It looks like they got exactly what they asked for.
Posted on August 24, 2007
Adelie said:
Wow! This seems to be a combination of the worst of everything.
Design competitions obviously have a bad reputation among designers, but the Average Joe seems to like them.
… Ooo! Ooo! Design contests are like the American Idol of design…
But, not even the Average Joe can really like this one since they don’t even have a chance to “make it”. And don’t even get me started on that whole “design by committee” thing.
Posted on August 24, 2007
michael said:
these rule! i vote for #3
Posted on August 24, 2007
Bill Kerr said:
Iowa State has fans?
Posted on August 24, 2007
Mike Miller said:
I feel sorry for the schmucks that will have to wear that garbage on them when they play.
Even more so, what about the students enrolled in their school’s design program? (http://www.design.iastate.edu/) How does the Graphic Design program chair (http://www.design.iastate.edu/GD/rogerbaer.php) answer them about this?
Posted on August 24, 2007
GCRaya said:
“Spec Hurts The One You Love! No-Spec.com
Posted on August 25, 2007
adam Duquette said:
Ugh, I find sports logos to be a sad lot in general. They should just use blank helmets instead.
Why are they even doing this? It seems to be just a lame publicity stunt.
Posted on August 25, 2007
Tom said:
Reason #953 why Iowa is called the Hawkeye State (and not the Cyclone State). I called my parents in Iowa last week when I saw this on “I-State”s website just to thank them for raising me as a Hawkeye fan and not “I-State”. Good lord.
Posted on August 27, 2007
Kyle Fletcher said:
These would all be a lot better on a mirror finish reflective chrome helmet.
Posted on August 28, 2007
PixelHustler said:
NOT ENOUGH GRADIENTS!!!
No lens flair? WTF!
DO NOT WANT!
Posted on August 29, 2007
G.B.Veerman said:
A killer, killer post on the topic of spec work/the-masses-as-design-experts appeared in July at the Bullshit Observer here.
An excerpt you’ll appreciate: “To those who are “seeking artists”, let me ask you; How many people do you know, personally, with the talent and skill to perform the services you need?
More than likely, you don’t know any…. And this is not really a surprise.
In this country, there are almost twice as many neurosurgeons as there are professional illustrators. There are eleven times as many certified mechanics. There are SEVENTY times as many people in the IT field.
So, given that they are less rare, and therefore less in demand, would it make sense to ask your mechanic to work on your car for free? Would you look him in the eye, with a straight face, and tell him that his compensation would be the ability to have his work shown to others as you drive down the street?
Would you offer a neurosurgeon the “opportunity” to add your name to his resume as payment for removing that pesky tumor?”
Posted on August 29, 2007
Kyle Fletcher said:
Word G.B. Great find!
Posted on August 31, 2007
Ben Hall said:
We have started a website to petition these helmets and to keep cy on the helmets. Feel free to help us out and sign the online petition at www.savecy.com!
Posted on September 11, 2007
Ben said:
I agree with you, that this is a publicity stunt and as an alum graphic designer would prefer to see the cyclone mascot logo (that appears professionally designed) remain or pay a designer to correct our existing identity which is actually fairly strong in some areas.
Please go to http://www.savecy.com to help give us this option and sign the online petition!
Posted on September 11, 2007
Tom said:
Colorado State-Pueblo is joining the “Design-A-Uniform” game show travesty:
http://twolves.colostate-pueblo.edu/uniform.pdf
Although the clip-art helmet and jersey templates for “designers” to draw on is pretty sweet, I have to admit. What is this, Chuck E. Cheese?
Posted on September 11, 2007
James said:
Welcome to the Do It Yourself Nation. Someone goes out and buys a mechanic book and they think they can take apart an engine. Likewise, people buy a program and they think the crap they produce is called design. My one-year-old daughter is more creative with slobber and Cheerios than a Booster or Alumni with a program will ever be.
And I’m sure there is a booster or alumni who has promised to be more giving if their “design” is chosen.
If what we are seeing is the combination of several designs, I would hate to see what the individual “designs” were.
Posted on September 21, 2007
Tom said:
Vossman, just to bring this story to a conclusion. Iowa State announced their new helmets yesterday (which are now leading to a full re-brand of athletics, but that’s a different story for a different day)…
and they’re not using ANY of the options that were voted on! The helmet is going to be the middle version in the graphic at the top of this post, only it will be red instead of white. The “I” mark will still be red, mind you, so its red-on-red. But that’s an aesthetic argument, so I digress.
To recap: they took contest submissions for a new helmet, combined their favorites into three options and put it up for a vote of the masses, and then after the votes were tallied they decided not to use the chosen option anyway. You can’t make this stuff up.
http://www.cyclones.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DBOEMID=10700&ATCLID=1249144
Posted on September 27, 2007