As Icethetics nears its fifth anniversary, it's time to take another step. This site is all about branding and yet nothing outside of cyberspace bears any Icethetics branding whatsoever. No coffee mugs, pens, mousepads... not even a T-shirt. But who would really buy any of those things? We're jersey nuts. We buy jerseys.

Today, I'm announcing the Icethetics Jersey Contest. I want you to design an Icethetics-branded hockey jersey that you would actually want to buy, wear and keep in your collection. What do you think?

I'm launching this contest in partnership with RinkGear, who will provide the actual jerseys for us. Icethetics concept artists will design and send in their suggestions, then everyone will vote. The winning design will become the Official Icethetics Jersey. The winner will get a free one; it'll be on sale to everyone else. (Not sure about pricing at this time.)

So how to we start this process? We could just dive right in and start accepting concepts, but I think that's skipping a step. We should give the designers some ideas to work from. I'd like us to use the comments of this post as a forum to discuss what an Official Icethetics Jersey should look like. Then in a few days, the Contest page will go live. It'll feature a list of reader suggestions and instructions for submitting your designs.

Let's have some fun with this! And thanks, RinkGear!