Clara De Leon’s original Knicks-inspired t-shirt design
CLARA DE LEON / COURTSEY
Maddie Rosado, Managing / News Editor
Clara De Leon, a sophomore psychology major at Manhattan University (MU), won this year’s Manhattan Madness T-shirt competition ahead of the event on Oct. 15 with a Knicks-inspired design.
The competition, which invites students to submit shirt designs for Manhattan Madness, is run by the Student Government and the Office of Student Engagement.
De Leon decided to enter the competition after Ally Haskins, Sigma Delta Tau president and Student Government president, sent a message inviting members to submit designs. De Leon’s design was inspired by the Knicks’ recent win as well as last year’s winning T-shirt design.
“When I was designing the shirt, I looked back to last year’s design, but I also wanted it to be Knicks-inspired because of their recent win,” De Leon said.
De Leon shared with The Quadrangle what tools she used to design the T-shirt.
“I used Canva to make the front and the back of the shirt,” De Leon said. “I also put some explanations as to what I thought would be good on the shirt in case they wanted to switch some stuff up.”
Gianna Rutigliano, senior civil engineering major and executive vice president of Student Government, collected the entries and narrowed them down.
“[The Student Government] gets all the T-shirt submissions,” Rutigliano said. “They all go to the Student Government email. I sent out a form and had everybody [in the Student Government] pick their top three designs so that we could send out [another form] to the entire school [to vote on and choose an official winner].”
Rutigliano explained to The Quadrangle why a student-run competition matters.
“I think it gives students more of a voice … and there’s more of a student appeal [in this competition] than an administrative one,” Rutigliano said. “I also think that the voting allows a lot of different student input, so that you see which designs are truly wanted.”
De Leon described her initial reaction to winning.
“I was pretty excited because I feel like I don’t typically win things,” De Leon said. “I feel like I have bad luck usually. I think it’s cool that … everybody will have it [the T-shirt she designed].”
De Leon’s advice for future entries in next year’s Manhattan Madness T-shirt competition is to choose something timely and bold.
“My advice for next year’s competition is for [students] to choose or incorporate something that’s more relevant to today,” De Leon said. “That’s why I did the [Knicks], because it was super relevant this summer and super popular. But also have fun with the design and use some bold colors.”
On the day of Manhattan Madness, some MU students believed the shirt handed out at the event was not the winning design from the competition. The winning submission had been created in the Knicks’ orange and blue, but the shirt distributed to students used green and black, MU’s colors.
To clarify, The Quadrangle contacted Nicole Brosnan, director of Student Engagement, who explained that the artist had allowed for the colors to change when she submitted her design.
“For the T-shirt competition, the artist who submitted the winning design submitted a design in orange and blue in honor of the Knicks,” Brosnan wrote in an email to The Quadrangle. “However, the artist stated when she [De Leon] submitted the design that she was fine if the design was switched to MU colors.”
The voting form also included a space for comments, and several students used it to ask that the colors be switched to MU’s. The winning design received the most comments of that kind.
“At the bottom of the form, students could leave a comment,” Brosnan wrote. “The winning design, which had the most student votes, also had the most comments for the colors to be switched to [green and black]. The design was the same, just colors switched, which the artist allowed, and the students voted for.”
Despite the mix-up over the colors, Brosnan considers the contest an important part of Manhattan Madness.
“The T-shirt contest is such an important part of Madness,” Brosnan wrote. “It helps include students’ creativity and opinions in the event… While the event helps celebrate our basketball teams and spirit squads, it’s also about bringing the MU community together and creating school spirit. Getting everyone in a matching T-shirt created by a Jasper definitely brings school spirit and Jasper pride.”