As the Cyclones are preparing to head to the Humanitarian Bowl in Boise, Idaho, Ames merchants are selling all kinds of bowl-themed merchandise.

“The first year we went to a bowl, there was a huge demand [for bowl game merchandise],” said Sadja, marketing supervisor for University Book Store. “It’s a bragging right.”

Local merchants were preparing to have merchandise on the shelves, even before the final venue announcement was made.

Lynette Seymour, University Book Store general manager, said the book store had to prepare to sell different types of products depending on which bowl was chosen.

Things like hats and scarves, which would not have been printed for a Florida game, will be in higher demand for students who are planning to take the trip to Idaho.

“As soon as we know which bowl, the printers start printing,” Seymour said. “We pre-order. We said, ‘For this bowl, we’ll take this, for this bowl, we’ll take this… ‘ “

Designers were busy coming up with designs for all the possible bowl game destinations.

“[We did] designs up for all the different options,” said Ron Hudson, art director for T. Galaxy Screen Printing, 525 E. 2nd St.

“The one they go with, we’re usually ready.”

Hudson said the logos for each bowl game are usually available on the Internet, which allows artists to incorporate them into their preliminary designs.

He said artists can build the logos from scratch by using JPEGs downloaded from the Internet. Then they can be ready to fit the actual finished logo into their designs once it is released.

Once they find out which logo they will actually use, Howard said, they have to deal with the many details of licensing.

Leah Covington, T. Galaxy licensing coordinator, said licensing has been a little more difficult this year than it was in past years.

“[The Humanitarian Bowl] hasn’t released the logo yet,” she said on Monday.

Unlike other bowls, Idaho’s logo wasn’t available before the announcement, and Covington said products would be delayed a few days for that reason.

“We need to pay the money to the bowl to get their logo,” Hudson said. “Each one works a little differently. They each have a different way that they handle their artwork.”

The Humanitarian Bowl works through an independent licensing agent who holds all of the licensing for the bowl’s designs. T. Galaxy must go through the agent in order to secure the right for using the design.

“We send out a certain amount of money up front to use the mark, and then we pay royalties afterward,” Hudson said.

Once they have permission to use the logo, artists start finalizing the designs.

“Iowa State needs to approve [the designs], as well as the bowl,” Hudson said.

Then, it’s just a matter of getting the merchandise onto the shelves.

“Our license is only for selling merchandise here in Iowa,” Covington said. “[We] cannot actually take it to the game in Idaho.”

That’s different than what T. Galaxy has dealt with in the past. Typically, the company has been licensed to sell its merchandise wherever it wanted to.

ISU merchandise will still be available in Idaho, but will have been printed by companies in Idaho, rather than from this area.

“We’ll have much better designs here,” Covington said. “We’ll actually be working with Iowa State.”