The Ramaz GO Apparel is coming soon! Every year, it is exciting for students to buy GO Apparel and wear it throughout the school year. During spirit week, sports games, and other Ramaz events, the GO Apparel is worn by all students creating a very festive aura. GO Apparel lasts years and siblings of Ramaz graduates continue to wear the apparel in college and even afterwards. Arielle Butman ’21 gave The Rampage the inside scoop of the making of this amazing merch and demonstrates that the production definitely more complicated than it appears. 

Butman and Lauren Lepor ’21 are the designers of this year’s apparel. According to Butman, the team uses a website called Custom Ink to create their designs. They started designing around December and still have not released the apparel because much reviewing needs to be done before apparel is ready to be ordered. At first, Butman and Lepor were going to design socks, but instead designed headphones; ideas are always changing and becoming more unique. 

The first step on the website is to pick a piece of merchandise. Butman explained that this is a complicated process because “there are so many options!
 Butman and Lepor decided to make crewnecks, hoodies, long-sleeve shirts, and are even considering selling sweatpants this year. Their goal is to create an entire outfit, head to toe, of Ramaz apparel. 

Next, they chose the colors, which need to be versatile for both genders and those with different styles. Butman said, “We are looking for something different and trying to steer away from last year’s classic blue and yellow.” She said that they may create an all black hoodie and make the blue and yellow colors more subtle. 

In addition, they must to decide if they are going to use the classic Ramaz Ram in their merch. In creating GO Apparel, Butman and Lepor need to please all Ramaz students. Butman explained that the ram is controversial — some people love it and some people hate it. They have not used the ram yet, but are thinking of maybe using it on their water bottle. 

There are many details to decide on when making these clothing. Fonts, styles, colors, and designs are carefully considered and chosen by the designer duo. Arielle says she is “obsessed with playing around with the fonts.” Fonts are huge decisions to pick, which is a fun activity for the designers. They have also created different ways the words should be arranged, such as in triangle dimension, and they chose different colors to juxtapose others. Once they have created a look, they show it to Gaby Ostad ’21, the student government’s Associate Vice President of Operations, who then recieves feedback from Rabbi Pianko. Butman explained that Custom Ink is really helpful because they never lose their work and can always go back and make small changes. 

When purchasing the GO Apparel dont forget to give a big thanks to Butman and Lepor because they have devoted so much time and effort to create iconic apparel that is loved by all and never goes out of style.