Color Conflict
 

We are in the process of getting our Phi Kappa Tau colony off the ground one thing we realized tho is that we have the same colors as PIKE. Red and Gold? We want to adopt a third color to distingush ourselves from Pike (the letters themselves have the potential to confuse others) does anybody have any suggestions for a third color?

hmm...well, your symbols are different, so perhaps not emphasize the colours as much and go for symbols/national symbols. And harvard red and old gold are pretty unique. Check what the Pike guys are up to, if theyre more cardinal red, go for a deep deep harvard. If theyre using a yellow gold, go for a brown gold. I know this sounds trivial, but people are smarter than you think. Plus, you get "Phi Tau", most people know Pike more than Pi Kappa Phi.

Good luck to your colony :-). My brother and grandfather are both proud brothers.


eta: Consider a silver perhaps if you go for 3 colors? As in true silver, not grey. In the girl scout tradition, we always said, "make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other is gold."

Pi Kappa Phi is not PIKE...unless that's your point, that people don't know Pi Kappa Alpha from Pi Kappa Phi. :) We had both on my campus when I pledged. A small part of me was glad when Pi Kap closed because I didn't have to keep the two straight anymore. :(

Yeah that is her point PIKE and Pi Kapp on this campus are always getting confused amongst GDIs and prospective members

You may have more official colors. I know for us, while green and white are the main ones, we also use gold and black.

Yes. ASA's primary colors are red & white, but our secondary colors are green and gold. We throw the gold in when we're at a school with another red or red & white sorority (AOII, Chi O).

We used Green a lot because we didn't have AGD, so we had "stoplight" letters. We did have ChiO though, so we stayed away from just using Crimson & Gold.

Your letters are different, so I suggest you emphsize them more.

Many have the same combonation of colors, but make your lettere pop out more for all to see.

One time I was back for home coming and no one was wearing their letters except one new GLO. Phi Sigma Kappa. I was embarresed as I was the only member of My Chapter who had on letters, LXA.

I admired those Brothers of a new colony for showing that they were there even though they had 10 members.


Keep the colors, but use a different one for letters so they will stand out.

Last but not least, good luck to You and YOur Brothers for a new colony.:)

Nope, sorry, just a reading comprehension problem on my part. Doh!

You shouldn't be choosing any new fraternity colors. Those colors are part of the fraternity's national brand idenity. Talk to your national consultant about how to better promote yourself. You might create an interesting logo for your colony that sets you apart, for example.

Just don't worry about it. There are more important things than colors to show your identity. But then, I'm from the camp who thinks it is isn't necc. to let everyone you see know what fraternity you're in. I mean what are you gonna use colors for? Ritual, fraternity flag, stuff like that is fine. But you don't need everything to be in your colors.

We're not CHANGING colors. I'd never do that for that fact that SigEp at my school did that and they are the most hated fraternity on campus SigEps most hated chapter nationally. We were discussing adding a third color, which from my understanding is common when the nationals only has one or two color.

We are not PIKE at all. We already have a PIKE chapter. I was saying that Phi Tau and PIKE colors are similar.

Don't go from your "understanding." Check with your nationals before you go promoting a third color. Adding a color to your official colors is changing the colors-- it is changing the established branding and marketing.

It is fine to have shirts, etc., that are different colors that have nothing to do with your official colors, but you can't go adding any arbitrary third colors to official fraternity marks or symbols that require the official colors.

You can distinguish your differences in other ways.

Why is anyone freaking out? NIC/NPC chapters have letters/shirts/etc in different colors all the time.

Do the PIKEs on your campus have a chapter shirt that they all have already? Like red on gold letters on a black shirt? If they do, then yall can do the opposite, like gold on black letters on a red shirt. Heck, do them in your school colors if you wish.

The third color is going to be just for the shirt, nothing else

Dude, honestly, if the only thing distinguishing your fraternity is your colors, then I'd say you've got bigger problems than what color shirts to get.

I did not suggest that the colors would be our only distinguishing factor. I was merely saying I'd like to adopt a 3rd color because PIKE essentially has the same colors as us.

When It comes to prospective members if they see PhiKT and PKA in the same colors they aren't going to know which is which. People have a hard enough time remembering which one is PIKE and which is Pi Kapp. We're not trying to add more to the confusion. I'm simply trying to establish a different visual identity.

GDIs can easily remember a GLOs colors than they can the letters. I can tell you how many times I've had girls ask me, "what's that blue and yellow sorority", or "who are the purple and gold ones?"

When it comes to T shirts, the fraternities on our campus had shirts in a bunch of colors. Pick something that looks good with your colors and work it into your shirt... such as a Navy shirt with old gold letters or something

You can still use your colors, just use other ones as well. It's not really a third "official" color, it's just the color of this set of Tshirts.

You could always do something like this (the MALE version):

http://us.st11.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.c...1911_128513083

And put "Phi Tau" instead of traditional block letters to distinguish yourselves.

Although I gotta agree with KLPDaisy...if you need different colors to make yourselves stand out, worry about something besides t-shirts.

(And I'm not picking on you, my dad's a Phi Tau)

If you use that shirt I'll drive to your colony and kick your tshirt chair's ass.
Most of our shirts werent in fraternity colors, they were green or blue or whatever. GDI's don't give a damn what color your shirt is, that won't impress them. To impress them you'll need quality and intelligent people, good looking girls, and good social events.

Hon, calm down, it's called an EXAMPLE. Just pointing out that there are other things besides a grey t-shirt with Harvard Red & Old Gold block letters that Phi Tau can use. I didn't mean for him to use THAT exact shirt.

It was a threat to him more than you.

Guide to fraternity t shirts-
1) short sleeve
2) should have a pocket
3) should have some picture on the back which represents the event
4) should never have any cheesy saying like "I like girls who like girls"
5) should also avoid lame brotherhood statements straight off national's website

^agreed, and should generally only come in white, navy blue, or forrest green

I gotta ask, why a pocket?

It's a guy thing. All of our work t-shirts HAVE to have pockets caz the guys like them.

Some guys like them for a pack of cigs, I usually like them because its the place I tend to find my credit card after a night at the bar.

You wear tshirts to a bar? I would've never pegged you as the type.

Thats a really good observation actually. I never wear t shirts, to the bar or anywhere else. That being said, I do wear those non-iron dress shirts with a front pocket, and its always a relief to find my credit card there. I imagine it would be the same with pocketed t shirts.

Oh ok, I got worried about you for a second there.

Huh? I was a "GDI" for a year before I joined a sorority. In the decade since I've helped out at campuses all over the country. I've never once heard anyone ask "Where's the Orange sorority?"

Your t-shirts can be in any old colors you please. I misunderstood where you were coming from with the "third color" question.

Have fun designing your shirts!

The thing is if you're new to greek life, you're probably not going to be able to identify letters like Phi, Xi, or Delta. You might be able to identify Pi and Sigma because of math, maybe even Theta. But the person who knows nothing about Greek letters will be clueless. I mean if someone told you they are a DPhiE as a GDI you might be looking for the actual letter D rather a triangle looking thing. So, what many Greeks do here is they wear their jerseys, of course you can have T-shirts in any color you want, but the jerseys they only get in their GLOs colors. It seems to help prospective members keep things straight after a flood of fraternity men approach them during rush week.

It's about visual identity, if you study advertising you know what its about. When I see a unicorn I always think of DPhiE, when I see a Teddy bear i think of AZD, the color pink always makes me think of Phi Mu. That's what we're going for.

JM, I think you're thinking too hard. It's not like National groups exclude themselves from campuses because their colors might conflict with someone who is already there.

This is a temporary thing of little import. You might as well throw darts at a picture of a rainbow.

Well, there's your answer. Put some pink teddy bear unicorns on your shirts. They won't confuse you with any other fraternity.

If your colors are too close to Pikes, and they wear red jerseys w/ gold letters (or whatever) then reverse those colors for your jerseys.

usually for a pack of cigs, or a soft koozie, credit cards, etc.

Look, do you really want someone in your fraternity that's not smart enough to realize that P does not equal F????? I know my dad doesn't.

No I don't, but look when I first got to college i didn't know sh*t from shinola. Like I said most people will know Pi from math, but as a freshman if someone approached me from Pi Kappa Alpha, Phi Kappa Tau, or Tau Kappa Epsilon. At the end of the day I would need something more to identify them with because all I would remember is a bunch of Alpha, Omegas, Gammas etc. It's easy for us to say we know the letter of the alphabet because we are Greek. It's not that easy with people who don't. To us it seems easy to remember but to a newcomer who's being inundated with a bunch of terminologies that he/she has never heard before to them basically "It's all Greek"

If you get a shirt with Phi Tau on it and they have a shirt with Pike on it, I think you'll do ok. That said, your chapter should probably be deciding what color the jerseys should be.

Please note, unless you're on some sort of intermural field, there is absolutely no reason for you to ever wear a jersey.Where is this colony anyhow?