Athletics posters encourage Hoosier spirit

On the door of Nick’s English Hut, the Chocolate Moose and other Bloomington staples, a skittish wolf is held by the tail and spanked by the mighty hand of the Indiana Hoosiers.

Sandwiching the image, large block text reads “SPANK STATE” and includes the date and location of the upcoming football game against Arkansas State.

The poster, and ones similar to it, are designed by 2009 IU graduate Jon Terzini. He was hired by the IU Athletics Department to design the posters to promote football and men’s basketball home games.

The posters, which he has been designing since last fall, are all monochromatic red with catchy, humorous phrases and are styled similar to retro posters that promoted games in decades past.

“We are in college athletics, so it’s all for fun,” Jeff Cieply, IU Athletics Department’s director of sales, said. “This is pure entertainment — a little tongue-in-cheek, but it is all in good humor.”

Terzini estimated that he has made at least 30 of the posters, with phrases such as “ROAST THE BUCKEYES” for the Ohio State football game, “BURY THE BADGERS” against Wisconsin, “GRIND DOWN GRACE” for the Grace basketball game exhibition last season and “CAGE THE TIGERS” for this season’s football opener against Towson.  

Terzini said he also works in small details to reference both the Hoosiers and the opposing team. For example, in the “WHACK-A-WOLVERINE” poster for the football game against Michigan, the scoreboard in the background is from Memorial Stadium. In this week’s poster, the “A” in “STATE” is larger, which is reminiscent of the Arkansas State logo.

“I do a lot of subtle touches to the posters that by simply looking at them, you wouldn’t notice,” Terzini said in an e-mail. “Sometimes you have to know a little about the team too.”

He said one of his favorites is the poster from 2009’s football game against Purdue, which featured a larger-than-life Hoosier punting the head of Purdue Pete through the goalposts of Memorial Stadium. It read “PUNT PURDUE.”

“It’s not that I hate Purdue, but the mascot is one of the dumbest mascots,” he said. “I mean, it’s a guy holding a hammer — it’s so annoying. I just thought it would be so awesome to punt his head. So after that, I made them not more violent, but a lot more aggressive.”

Terzini, who signs his work as “TERZ,” owns and operates a graphics design studio in Richmond, Ind., where he works on logos and illustrations for a variety of clients.
He said he comes up with the slogans himself while working on the posters.

“It’s easy for me to say, ‘Oh, I can say this and draw this and it will look cool,’” he said. “My favorite part about it is that I get to draw. I get this creative freedom with it that a lot of other jobs don’t give you.”

The posters start as simple thumbnail sketches, which Terzini scans and sends to the Athletics Department. After he receives approval, Terzini works on a composite version to make sure he has everything right before doing the final draft on the computer.

“Jon captured the whole retro look — he just nailed it on the first drawing. It was perfect,” Cieply said. “He has been so easy to work with. It’s been great.”
Students said they like the new posters. Cieply said many fans have come to the offices to try to get copies of single posters or to collect the set. One Hoosier fan called them “sexy.”

“I like the art specifically — it really catches the eye. I’m a simple guy, and I like the two colors,” freshman John McCarthy said. “The phrases are catchy, too. I like the alliteration. It just rolls off the tongue.”