2012-2013 Oakland Zoo Designs: The Return of the 6th Man

Zoo folks,

We’re excited after many months of working on them to reveal the Oakland Zoo T-Shirt designs for the 2012-2013 Basketball season. Lots of people loved last year’s design, but others thought there were some things wrong with it. We listened to a lot of the critiques people had about last year’s design including the lack of a ball, that it didn’t say Pitt on it, and others. So for this year’s design we addressed them. There are elements of many past Zoo designs incorporated into both the front in the back. One person we showed them to described the shirt as a “Greatest Hits” of the Zoo designs of the past. Enough talk, however, here’s the front:

As you can see, the orange ball is back, along with the larger ball in the background. The design is anchored by a stylized basketball court with the Pitt logo at center court. We kept the fort symbol from last year’s design, as it’s a great hat tip to the city’s start as Fort Pitt. We’ve made it very obvious this is a Pitt basketball shirt while making it something even a non-Pitt fan can appreciate.Now for the back:

Back of the 2012-2013 Oakland Zoo T Shirt

The back is something we’re especially proud of. We combined the Cathedral design that has been used the past 2 years with the “6th Man” idea that was last seen on the 2008-2009 shirt. It mimics what the players have on the back of their jerseys. The Zoo has always been the 6th man for our team, and we wanted to bring that back. Now the back of the Zoo shirts almost entirely match the back of the players’ Hyper Elite jerseys.

We’ve spent a good amount of timing coming up with brand new phone/computer wallpapers, twitter avatars, cover photos. Those are all available here: http://imgur.com/a/dO1gf

Now, the shirts are not yet in, but should be available next week. We will of course update you when they’re on shelves. They’ll be available at the Team Store at the Pete, the Pitt shop on Forbes, and the Pitt Shop (Outside Vendor) on the corner. Off campus, they”ll be available at area Dick’s and other places. Also available this year to start out are Oakland Zoo hoodies, and Oakland Zoo shirts in lady sizes.  The hoodie was the #1 item requested when we did our survey this summer. We will let you know when those are in soon, should be next week. We have one other item we hope to have out before the season, but that can wait. If these items sell well, we can branch out into doing other Zoo related items.

All that’s left now before the season is simply counting the days till Midnight Madness on the 12th of October and the opener on November 9th. Lets Go Pitt!