Who says fashion and football don’t mix?

Last year, the NFL challenged 25 Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) students to reimagine the artwork and branding for all 32 teams in the league, in an attempt to connect with a younger, hipper demographic. The results of the design competition are finally available as a line of merch, dubbed the NFLxFIT line. 

“Millennials are an important audience for the NFL, and we want our products to resonate and be relatable to them – and there’s no better way to do that than by engaging FIT students to create fresh designs,” says Rhiannon Madden, the NFL’s vice president of consumer products.

Team Quick Snap, a group of four FIT students, came up with the winning designs, earning a grand prize of $15,000. The members of the team say they deconstructed each logo to find the “most important visual elements” from each, then rebuilt them as bold and expressive organic patterns. The students’ designs now grace a wide range of apparel from caps and beanies to leggings and pullovers. Products like tumblers and flags also got the high-fashion treatment.

The new designs even received a seal of approval from none other than Vogue magazine, which called it the “best NFL merch in ages.” As Steff Yotka put it on Vogue’s website: “These aren’t the stodgy logos or graphics your Grandpa wore, nor are they design-by-committee ideas that have populated NFL stores of the past.”

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