Issa Khan, fourth-year justice studies student, has one word to describe the University of Guelph-Humber’s merchandise: “Boring. Boring is the one word I would use because there’s nothing else to it.”
And he isn’t the only one who feels this way.
Some Guelph-Humber students are unsatisfied with the school’s merchandise. From the lacklustre designs to the small selection of pieces, students want more from their apparel.
For second-year Humber fashion arts and business student, Allison Skinner, the unappealing merchandise is a problem that students are taking into their own hands – literally.
“It’s gotten to the point where people make their own school merch because of how bad it is. I know what’s big right now is doing the flags on the hoodie with the name in it, that’s really cool,” says Skinner, adding “I think if you look at that and kind of implicate it into the school, it could obviously boost sales and then give people more pride and actually want to wear the stuff.”
Guelph-Humber currently offers a small variety of apparel items, mainly hoodies, T-shirts and sweatpants, with the institute’s name haphazardly slapped on the clothing article. Colours are extremely limited, almost exclusively available in the school’s colours of navy blue and red.
In stark contrast, Humber Polytechnic has a wide variety of merchandise, from hoodies to sweatpants and polo shirts, available in a wide range of colours extending well beyond the school’s colours of blue and yellow.
Humber’s new varsity line introduced new apparel items such as cropped hoodies, sweat shorts and varsity jackets that fit in with today’s fashion trends much more than their older merch. The varsity line also took existing items, such as hoodies, sweatshirts and sweatpants, upgrading their style with new trendy neutral colours and a new, more attractive logo.
Additionally, Humber recently released merchandise in collaboration with Canadian staple brand, Roots. The collaboration features salt-and-pepper Roots branded sweatpants, crewnecks, hoodies and quarter-zips with the text: “HUMBER COLLEGE EST. 1967”, along with the Humber ‘H’ logo.
The Humber North Bookstore declined a request to interview on the topic.
“It’s very juvenile. It’s very bland and it just lacks any creative or artistic elements that would make anyone want to buy it … I suppose we have a lot of different pieces, but they’re all mostly the same. It’s just different colors or different size of the Guelph-Humber logo, so in terms of variety [there’s] pretty much none,” says Khan regarding Guelph-Humber’s merch line.
Some students resort to wearing merch from other schools, particularly that of Humber and the University of Guelph, rather than purchase merch from Guelph-Humber.
“A sweater might be around $50 or $60 and when I’m paying for a sweater for that much, I want it to be a good: something that’ll last long, and something that just looks good in my opinion. So, a $60 sweater from Guelph-Humber, I won’t buy it, but a $60 sweater from University of Guelph is something I’ll buy, just because it looks a lot better. It’s something that I want to rep,” says Khan.
Due to being a relatively new and smaller school, Guelph-Humber has less of an established presence as a post-secondary, making their merchandising crucial in the representation of the school and its brand. If the school merchandise is boring and bland, that reflects poorly on the institution.
“I believe stylish merchandise will help to increase student pride and school identity. It keeps the school current as well as our students are walking advertisements,” says Jennifer Lee Reitano, program coordinator and professor for Humber’s fashion arts and business program.
“Students are always looking for the latest trends and I think their school merchandise should reflect [that]. At the same time, you want to keep items classic for sustainability reasons,” Reitano adds.
Skinner believes that a balance needs to be struck between creative expression and school spirit when designing merch: “I think it in this generation, people want to be creative, and they want to express themselves, but they also want to rep their school, so why not combine the two?”
With media students at Guelph-Humber and fashion students at Humber, the answer to better merch could be right in front of the school’s face.
“We have a whole fashion program at Humber, yet there doesn’t seem to be any good merchandise. So, getting fashion students or just any student’s input on designs would be a great idea,” says Khan.
Partnering with Humber’s fashion program could introduce a new fashion-forward perspective that may not be present with its current designers.
“We offer three fashion programs at Humber College with degree, post-grad and diploma students. We focus on the business of the fashion industry and could help create more desirable products based on student expertise of the industry,” says Reitano.
Additionally, the second year ‘Digital Graphic Design I’ class is quite popular amongst media students. It creates the perfect opportunity for Guelph-Humber to fully harness their student’s potential by partnering with them to create designs for students, by students.
At the end of the day, nobody knows the target audience better than themselves. Giving students the opportunity to create merchandise they want to wear will only benefit Guelph-Humber, through profit and brand representation.
Students want to represent their school and giving them stylish and appealing merchandise is the way to do so.