I started this blog in July of 2009. The idea came to me when I realized how much time I spent looking for cute Clemson dresses, girly Clemson gifts, and a place to share my love of Clemson with other female fans like myself.
I was disappointed that most independent Clemson fan sites and blogs were focused solely on Clemson sports and usually (not always) targeted towards more of a male audience. Don't get me wrong, I love TigerNet as much as the next person - but I would never post about cute gameday outfits, etc. on their forum for fear of the backlash from the hardcore male members who probably wouldn't appreciate posts like that clogging up the boards. :)
Hence Clemson Girl was born.
After more than a year, this blog has continued to grow in leaps and bounds much to our delight - and we find ourselves getting closer and closer to our goal of building the ultimate community of Clemson female fans: a place where we can talk about Clemson sports AND cute Clemson outfits, a place where you can share your photos and your opinions without fear of ridicule, and a place where you can easily find everything and anything Clemson and girlish.
We have so many ideas for the future of this site and our brand, and we're hoping to grow our team this year (maybe with you!).
So before I go on... let me just say
THANK YOU to all of you who continue to read the blog and support us and our amazing sponsors day in and day out.
....................................As Clemson Girl grows, we continue to get more notoriety among Clemson fans - so it's no surprise that the powers that be at Clemson University have heard of us too and have visited and monitored our site.
Like any institution, Clemson University is dedicated to protecting and maintaining their brand. University symbols, such as the Tiger Paw, are registered marks - hence that little circular 'R' you always see next to the Tiger Paw. Clemson University, like most large universities in the US, pays a company called the
Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC) to protect the University's images (like the paw) and manage and maintain companies who can use the licensed paw.
To obtain a license with the CLC you have to spend A LOT of money as well as go through a major, lengthy and difficult (did I mention expensive?) process just to apply. It also requires more money and lengthy processes on a monthly basis even after getting approved for a license to use a university's image.
So with the growing success of Clemson Girl, it's no surprise that we recently received a letter from the CLC on behalf of Clemson University. Their major concern was the use of the (
badly drawn by me in Photoshop) white paw we were using on our Clemson Girl image - even though they recognized the paw wasn't the licensed Clemson paw, they felt that due to the nature of the content on this blog, they're concerned that you, the readers, will get confused and think we were affiliated with Clemson Univ. and think that Clemson Univ. was condoning what we write and what we promote.
Fair enough. And despite
our existing disclaimers all over our sites (which I'm sure you've memorized, right?), Clemson Univ. felt it was best to just remove the paw from Clemson Girl.
And of course we respect Clemson University's concerns. After all...we started this blog because we love Clemson so much in the first place.
....................................We think that this couldn't have happened at a better time - we're actually happy about it... yup, happy! :)
Because who wears the same gameday dress for an entire year and a half? How are we supposed to promote fashionable Clemson gameday apparel if our own logo is wearing an outfit that is so last year?!?
So Clemson Girl is donating her old (and probably worn and way faded from so many washes) Clemson paw dress to Goodwill and is starting an entirely new wardrobe.
Without further ado, check out Clemson Girl's newest look... what do you think?
You'll be seeing this new outfit on her on all of our sites - but we don't want her to wear the
same old thing again for another year. So we've decided to get YOU involved in creating Clemson Girl's new looks.
Visit the blog tomorrow for another post on a new ongoing contest that let's you be the gameday dress designer and if we feature your design on our logo, you can win big prizes!
Hooray for a new chapter and great new look for Clemson Girl!
Share
We were super busy this week and almost forgot...our birthday! This week last year we officially launched ClemsonGirl.com. 
