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One particular Friday in March becomes an advertising major’s dream: preparing for the chance to create the ultimate walking slogan for Unofficial t-shirts and feeling fine in the process. The concept of Unoffical St. Patrick’s Day never changes, but each year kelly green-colored t-shirts reveal just how creative Illinois students really are. While city and university officials are preparing in advance for the rowdiness by sending letters to parents, closely monitoring liquor stores and increasing police patrol on campus, there’s no stopping the tradition. The CU campus has been celebrating the holiday unofficially since 1996. It was first introduced to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, which occurred over the university’s spring break. This year, the celebration starts 12 days early.

Drinking has been the common activity since the start, but recently t-shirt design and deciding who’s wearing the best one has become just as important.

Custom printing shop Underground Printing, located at 502 E. John St., sees its busiest time of the year in the weeks preceding Unofficial.

“Our store opened in 2007, and each year we have doubled our business in sales during the time of Unofficial,” said Underground Printing Store Manager Courtney McDougall.

“We’re looking to achieve the same this year and double our numbers from 2009. Just today we took 89 orders that range from small to large groups and around 70 orders in the past two days,” McDougall said.

This year, the shop is noticing a trend in recent pop culture references in shirt designs.

“My favorite shirt design so far this year has been a Jersey Shore reference,” said McDougall. “The design has the acronym ‘G.T.L’ which stands for ‘Gym, Tan, Liquor’ on the front, and on the back it said ‘That’s the Situation 2010.’ It made me laugh when we placed that order.”

Te’Shurt, located at 711 S. Wright Street, said popular designs include the basic “UnOFficIal 2010” (with U OF I in caps) and “UnOFfIcially Blacked Out 2010.” Any reference to shamrocks, leprechauns, beer mugs and “gettin’ lucky” are other design favorites. As for popular slogans, the most frequent orders include “Irish we were drunker” and “Don’t cry over spilled milk ... it could have been beer.” Te’Shurt store owner Michele Fasset agrees that Unofficial creates one of the largest revenues for her business during the year.

“Unofficial got really big in the early 2000s, but exploded as far as t-shirts go around 2005,” said Fasset.

Now that the university is taking greater precautions for the celebration, Fasset has seen a difference in sales.

“Unofficial is a little less popular than it was five years ago, but business is still good. We’re used to being busy here,” said Fasset. “Unofficial is the big spring item. It’s even bigger than Mother’s Day.”

Over the years, out-of-townies have heard about the party on Green Street. People travel near and far to celebrate being Irish for just a day.

“This day in our campus-town community is comparable to Mardi Gras down in New Orleans,” Te’Shurt manager John Lee said. “What’s really unique is even though it’s held here in Champaign, we see people come in from other campuses and states. We have people ordering shirts for friends that are visiting so they can go back to their colleges and impress their friends that they came to this huge party.”

All the preparation, excitement and planning comes down to one shot. If it’s not about the drinks, it’s about catchy slogans never losing that cliché quality: “Tap the keg, forget your class; it’s Unofficial, so fill your glass.”