Hansen wins GJCF t-shirt design contest

     In December, the Great Jones County Fair released one of several new contests the fair is introducing this year: A t-shirt design competition.

   Each year, the fair sells t-shirts, identifying the theme for the summer.

   The 2023 GJCF theme is: “Rooted in Agriculture.”

   GJCF Office Manager Abby Jaeger said there really weren’t any rules associated with the t-shirt design competition, other than perhaps keeping the theme in mind.

   “We had 20 entries from a broad range of ages,” she said.

   The fair saw a lot of submissions from area high school students, namely due to their promotion of the contest on TikTok and Instagram.

   “That was fun to see,” she said of interest from a younger audience. “We’ve been pushing our presence on social media.”

   In January, after sifting through the entries, the GJCF named a winner for 2023: 13-year-old Landri Hansen of Wyoming.

   Hansen actually saw the contest on Instagram.

   This isn’t Hansen’s first time designing a t-shirt. She uses her Cricut machine at home to design shirts for family members and friends.

   “I thought I should give it a shot,” she said of the fair contest. “I used the Cricut app to find the different images and put it together.”

   Knowing the fair’s theme, Hansen took the word “rooted” in big, block letters and repeated it three times to mimic as though it was going underground. Then she placed a tractor and corn on top of the letters, with tree roots protruding behind the word “rooted.”

   Hansen said she wanted to illustrate farming and agriculture with her design to visually show the theme of the fair.

   “I had four or five different versions that I showed my friend for her input on first,” Hansen said of needing help to narrow her designs down. “I asked her, ‘What would they (the fair) choose?’”

   Some of her earlier designs contained too many fonts, she said, 20 to 30 different fonts. She decided to go the simpler route with one font.

   “Using a lot of fonts didn’t look right,” she said.

   When Jaeger informed Hansen that her t-shirt design was chosen as the winner, she didn’t believe her.

   “Because I hadn’t heard anything in a while (since she submitted her design), I didn’t think I won,” she said. “But then the news sunk in and I was not expecting that!”

   Jaeger said Hansen’s design stuck out because she emphasized the fair’s theme so well.

   “She focused on what we’re trying to do, which is get back to the roots of the fair, agriculture. Plus, her family’s involved in ag.”

   Jaeger said she was just as excited to tell Hansen she had won.

   “The Hansens are good friends and Landri is a good kid with a bright future,” Jaeger praised.

   The winner will receive two track tickets to a GJCF concert of his/her choice. Hansen narrowed it down to either Pitbull or Jon Pardi.        

   “It’s a difficult choice,” she said of two great artists.

   Knowing that her design will be appearing on t-shirts sold to people from all over Iowa, perhaps purchased by visitors from other states as souvenirs, Hansen said, “That’s really cool! I never thought of it like that. That’s a lot more people than just my friends and family.”

   Hansen is no stranger to the GJCF. She’s been showing livestock and exhibiting projects at the fair since she was in fourth grade with the Wyoming Pioneers 4-H Club.

   Hansen, a seventh grader at Midland schools, will be showing pigs and goats this year at the fair.

   Last summer, she built a 4-foot-tall dollhouse that earned her a purple ribbon and qualified for the Iowa State Fair.

   “I’m going to paint the dollhouse and enter it again,” she shared.

   The fair shirts will be sold during the kick-off event in June and at the fair office.

   Hansen is the daughter of Travis and Elisha Hansen of Wyoming.