I'm a Designer!
And I *LOVE* OM pins and shirts!
The Illinois Odyssey of the Mind leadership team is welcoming pin and shirt design ideas for the current OM year! Anyone can submit a design - student, parent, teacher, volunteer, etc. - as long as they are *currently affiliated with Illinois OM.*
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Here are the competition rules:
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(1) Be creative! It's OM. This goes without saying. Think outside the box and do something cool!
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(2) Be original! No, really. We can't use trademarked or protected intellectual property. For you young'uns out there,
this means that we cannot use famous characters (like Mickey Mouse or Superman) in our designs. Even parodying
famous works, like writing Omer in a Willy Wonka-esque typeface on a candy bar pin, is pushing the envelope. Let's
do our best to avoid cease and desist letters by creating original themes!
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(3) Be popular! This is a fun lesson from Marketing 101: to come up with a great shirt/pin idea, you should ask, "What
would K-12 OMers around the world find cool, fun, and interesting?" Those are the kinds of pins they'll be looking
for at World Finals, so the best designs will be those that will surely be popular with OMers looking to trade pins!
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(4) Be stylish! We want to create Illinois OM shirts that people will want to wear all year long. Bright neon green and
pink may capture attention, but we'll probably be leaving those in the drawer on non-OM weekends. We don't want
to distract the neighbors or unintentionally guide plans to land in our backyard.
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(5) Be thematic! Our shirts and pins usually connect in some way. So, if you have a cool idea, make sure it lends itself to
a neat shirt design and a pin or pin set.
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(6) Be economical! Listen, we all love pins, but pins can get expensive! Some states have dozens of pins, but that's not
always super inclusive. In Illinois, we'd rather have one *exceptional* pin than 10 mediocre pins. So, you should
think about creating an awesome *state* pin and then consider additional pins that might make a "set" when
combined. Some years, we create a "problem pin" for each of the 5 Long-Term Problems, but there's no hard and
fast rule about it. Just remember that the goal is quality, not quantity -- we want the *right* pins folks will want!
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THE DEADLINE: please submit your designs (as a PDF) using the form below by Saturday, November 1, 2025
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JUDGING CRITERIA: The Illinois Odyssey of the Mind volunteer board, which includes representation from all three regions,
will review the submissions and select the pin/shirt design that it believes will best represent Illinois OM
for the 2025-2026 year based on the requirements above and experience with pins/shirts since 1984 :)
The board also reserves the right to make design tweaks/edits to help with the success and/or
feasibility of the pin/shirt (e.g., color changes for cost savings, font changes for readability, etc.)
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Please send any questions to contact@illinoisodyssey.org.