Celebrate DIS Recognition Day

National DIS Recognition Day is commemorated on the first Friday in October to recognize DIS for the many roles they take on to protect people across the country from infectious diseases such as STIs, tuberculosis, and more. For the 15th anniversary of this day, we wanted to do something special with the community… So, in addition to our October events and resources, the National Coalition of STD Directors is hosting a design contest for DIS-related merch!  

We hope this will be a fun opportunity to connect and work with the community to create merch by DIS, for DIS – products that you’ll truly want to use to show off your DIS pride, this October and beyond. The winner will be chosen by a panel of NCSD staff and will receive a FREE item with their design on it, and recognition on our promotional materials (if desired). We will be accepting submissions from now through August 9. Other key dates are outlined below.

We can’t wait to see what this innovative community comes up with!

Entrance Criteria: 

• • • • Must be 18+ years old. 
      • Must be a resident of the United States. 
      • Must be a current or former Disease Intervention Specialist (DIS). 
      • Up to three (3) submissions are allowed per person. 

Submission Guidelines: 

• • • • Submit as a 1500px by 1500px PNG or JPG file. 
      • A transparent background is preferred. 
      • Design must be original, and by submitting it you agree that you have the right to use and distribute the design. 
      • Designs cannot be created using AI. 

Submit Your Design Here

Additional Tips and Information: 

• • • • If you don’t have access to design software, you can utilize free resources such as Canva, Affinity, or Krita to create a design. Please refrain from using artificial intelligence (AI) platforms such as ChatGPT, Claude, etc.
      • Designs should be limited to three colors or less for printing purposes. 
      • Designs should be relevant to the disease intervention sector and/or DIS Recognition Day. 
      • Designs should be focused on being made for a t-shirt and can be for the front, back, or dual-sided – just make it clear how you plan for it to be laid out in your submission. 
      • We may work with the winning submission designer to make tweaks to the design to better fit within the printing parameters, if needed. 
      • We encourage you to include the year (2026) in your design, although this is not required. Depending on the winning design selection, we may work with the designer to add this element if not already included. 
      • We encourage you to browse our merch store to get a feel for designs we’ve used in the past. 

Usage Information: 

The design chosen will be used on merch that is sold within the NCSD Merch Store, hosted on Bonfire. All profits from sales go back to NCSD as a nonprofit organization, and not to any single person or program. The designer of the winning design will release their design to NCSD for use in our merch store, but retain rights to still utilize their design for personal use. 

Judging Criteria: 

• • • Alignment with submission guidelines 
    • Appropriate and relevant for the audience (DIS) and organizational (NCSD) use 
    • Aesthetics and usability 
    • Originality 

Key Dates:

• • • Applications open: Now
    • Applications close: August 9, 2026 at midnight
    • Submitters hear back by: September 1, 2026
    • Merch available for purchase by: Early September (keep an eye on our social media and emails for updates on availability!)
    • DIS Recognition Day: October 2, 2026

Submit Your Design Here

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