It’s time to spill the beans!
In honor of Earth Day 2025, we invite undergraduate and graduate students to submit t-shirt designs around food sustainability, accessibility and security. The winning design will appear on our 2025 Earth Day t-shirt.
A limited number of Earth Day t-shirts will be available at our annual Festival on the Green Roof on Monday, April 21. This year’s event will be a collaboration with Carolina Dining Services. Attendees will need to complete an “Earth Day Passport” activity at the event to receive a shirt.
Important Contest Dates
- Thursday, December 5 – T-shirt design contest opens
- Tuesday, January 21 – Contest closes.
- Monday, January 27 – Winning student notified.
- Monday, February 10 – Design finalized with student.
Design Guidelines
Students may submit designs related to food sustainability. It is up to the designer if they’d like to include an elements related to the University or the greater community.
- Designs can be hand drawn or digitally created.
- Designs can, but do not have to include “Sustainable Carolina” or “Earth Day.” We welcome creativity!
- Designs should be black and white. No multi-color designs, please! The t-shirt will either be dark with the design in a light color or light with the design in a dark color.
- Your shirt can have just a front design OR a small front design with larger back design. One design entry per student.
- Please use this naming convention when sending in your file to specify front and back designs: last name_first name_design_contest_front or last name_first name_design_contest_back.
Please note, the winning student design may need to be modified as it goes through approval with the UNC Institute for the Environment and University Communications.
Why food?
From supporting local farmers to reducing food waste, there’s so much we can do individually and as a community to support our food systems. Sustainability-related benefits of supporting food systems include:
- Environmental: Adapting to climate change, conserving water and other resources, and eating locally.
- Economic: Mitigating food insecurity, alleviating poverty and improving health.
- Social: Supporting farmers and their families, working in you community garden and bonding over meals.
We encourage students to draw upon these ideas when creating their designs.
Submission Form: 2025 Earth Day T-Shirt Design Contest
This contest is open to undergraduate and graduate students at UNC-Chapel Hill. This year’s theme is innovation in infrastructure. We encourage those entering to look at our website to learn about Carolina’s sustainable features and draw inspiration from there. Please upload your design files to this form.