Most people would agree that the plain Marc Garneau sweaters from previous years—with a simple cougar logo printed on a solid colour—could have done a better job at capturing the unique identity of students from our school. But this year, students are being offered the opportunity to design the perfect sweater that they picture the proud students of Marc Garneau wearing.
Arora Chen, our External Affairs Officer, sports last year’s SAC sweater design.
Photo: Jackie Ho
Through an open sweater design competition, students can submit designs that will be voted upon for the winner. Arora Chen, the External Affairs Officer, is responsible for the innovative idea.
“I thought it would be a great way to engage students and increase student participation,” said Arora. “This year we wanted to give the students the freedom to pick the sweater they wanted.”
So far SAC has received several outstanding submissions and is hoping that more will come before the submission deadline this coming Saturday 21 September. Students don’t have to come from an artistic background to take part in the contest; their designs can simply be a mash-up of different photos and words put together on Photoshop rather than being hand drawn. Submissions meeting the requirements of the competition can be emailed to SAC at [email protected].
From Monday to Wednesday of the following week, the submitted sweater designs will be posted around the school as well as on the SAC Facebook page. All students will then be able to vote for their top choice on Thursday 26 September in their home form classes, or in the SAC office if they have early spare.
The inspiration behind this idea came to Arora mainly from speaking to fellow students on their thoughts about this symbolic piece of apparel. “I personally heard from a lot of people last year that the sweater wasn’t the design that they wanted. When I asked several people about creating their own designs they said they’d be more willing to purchase it, and it would add on to school spirit.”
Arora hopes to pass on the torch of this idea to future External Affair Officers to emphasize the importance of student involvement. SAC plans to sell the new sweaters in early October. For now, Marc Garneau’s 2013-2014 sweater design remains a mystery.
