Jon Thomas needed a new t-shirt design and created a contest on 99designs.
4 winners were selected from 115 designs submitted by 36 freelance designers.
Tap Cancer Out is a 501c3 nonprofit organization mobilizing and empowering the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu community to raise awareness and funds for cancer-fighting organization.
This is a fairly open-ended brief. We recently rebranded, moving away from dated, grungy logo to a cleaner, more professional look because we have a dual identity. On one hand, we're authentic to the BJJ community, training in a difficult, exhausting sport where you're trying to submit your opponent before they submit you. On the other hand we're an innovative, highly organized and professional charitable organization. We have relationships with some of the largest cancer research organizations in the world and have funded hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of research grants.
Also, BJJ is a sport for all ages and genders, so our shirts need to be as well. BJJ is also a sport called the "gentle art." It obviously has Brazilian roots,
Our current t-shirt roster can be found here:
https://store.tapcancerout.org/coll…s/t-shirts
You'll notice the designs are fairly unique to each other. Your design doesn't have to "fit" into this family of shirts (sticking out is probably better) but it should follow our brand guidelines.
We are big fans of:
http://www.rootsoffight.com
https://www.rvca.com
https://newazaapparel.com/
All of these inspired our new logo
Our name, Tap Cancer Out, should appear somewhere. It can be part of the primary design or simply something that shows up somewhere else on the shirt. You can see from our current shirt roster— https://store.tapcancerout.org/coll…s/t-shirts —there's a mixture of shirts that feature the name and others where it's just a small piece of a larger design.
The shirt must have a design on the front. What appears on the back and/or sleeve is optional and up to you.
The design can be graphical or typography, or a mixture of both. It can feature a phrase (extra points for something that the BJJ community will appreciate) but that's not mandatory.
It does NOT have to reference cancer but can reference the desire to fight (for others). Or it can just be a great BJJ shirt with cues that align with the sport. Try not to be to "punny" or steal from other properties "like altering the Coke logo to say "Choke" or "Keep calm and train BJJ." Again, a phrase is not mandatory but if used, these are the guidelines.
One phrase we use is "Fighting for Those in the Fight of Their Lives." That's an option if you want to try to work that into your design, but again, not mandatory.
We are in the BJJ/grappling community, but we are also a charity. Our new logo is clean and purposeful. We don't do grunge, cages/fences (or anything MMA related), skulls, Ed Hardy/Affliction, etc. Our fans love our more styled shirts, but it can't be over the top and needs to be appropriate for men, women, and children.
PLEASE DO NOT STACK "TAP CANCER OUT" ON TOP OF EACH OTHER. We already have a stacked tee, plus when it's just the three words, CANCER is always emphasized and that's not really what we're going for.
Avoid trying to replicate BJJ competitors doing moves, BJJ belts, or martial arts cliches. And please, no ribbons.
While one of our tees has asian inspiration, that style is not encouraged.
Do not use our logo as the primary design. The design must be a complete departure from our logo.