Noah Gould didn’t think he’d ever be a Duck. Growing up in San Francisco made it so the University of Oregon “wasn’t even on (his) radar” in terms of college choices. Now, his work is sold at the Duck Store, alongside other iconic alumni contributors such as Legends Drinkware and Orygun apparel.
Gould always had a passion for sports and when he got into the UO after applying last-minute, he quickly realized the power that the Duck sports franchise has over its fans. He too became a part of the Duck athletics crowd, attending every game that he could
But, when he joined a study abroad program and left the UO to pursue graphics design at Florence University of the Arts in Fall of 2017, he was suddenly separated from the athletics community that he had grown to love so much.
That separation, however, became the opportunity of a lifetime.
“It was my first time interacting with game days on social media and not being there,” he says. “It gave me a different perspective.”
Specifically? He started to see how he could bring a more personalized voice to the apparel market. So, born out of pure entrepreneurial spirit, an Italian backdrop, and a love for the Ducks, BoxenAutzen was created.
BoxenAutzen started as a t-shirt design company and its name comes from Gould’s first design – a play on the famous Supreme t-shirt, with the word “Supreme” replaced with “Autzen.”
“I liked the word Autzen because it’s not a word everyone knows,” Gould says. “If you see it and you’re not in the know, you have no idea what that is. But if you know what it is, it sparks a lot of emotion and nostalgia and memories.”
Gould says he didn’t start out trying to make a profit. The t-shirts were intended as mementos for his friends, a design that would stand out and link his squad together. However, when Gould returned from Italy, BoxenAutzen started growing traction around campus and before he knew it, he had received over 500 orders.
But the attention wasn’t all positive. The UO was also interested in his work – but for altogether different reasons.
“When I was making the bootleg tees, I was kind of working against the university. But now, I want to work with the university. I think there’s so much good stuff to come out of that.”
- Noah Gould
Brian Wright, the Chief Merchandizing Officer for The Duck Store says that they love working with student and alumni vendors.
“We're a student-owned college retailer so it's important to us to support alumni-owned vendors and current UO student entrepreneurs,” he says. “Alumni-owned business have a lot of passion and excitement for the Oregon brand and will personally do extra things to help ensure their product is successful such as tabling and additional marketing and promotions. Their passion for the Oregon brand does really translate to increased sales for both parties.”
But they have to go about selling merchandise the right way – by getting licensed.
One way to do this, says Wright, is by visiting The Duck Store’s Oregon Incubator, which helps UO students and community members get exclusive access to the UO license, and get the type of support and brand management insight that they need to succeed.
“I would recommend any potential alumni-vendor to submit information about the product or service they'd like the Duck Store to carry. From that request, we can reach out and start a conversation on the best path forward to get their product or service in our stores and in front of our customers,” Wright says.
When a student or alumni neglects do this, there can be consequences.
And in March of 2019 – the term before he was supposed to graduate – university brand management reached out to Gould with a cease-and-desist letter stating that he had infringed on their IP. Initially, he was devastated – applying for a license would cost him a ton of money -- though he now acknowledges that it would have been the right thing to do.
“I didn’t understand IP law then the way I do now. Oregon has such a strong brand, that they have to protect it,” says Gould. “In hindsight, it’s so good that that happened, because it’s what got me on the university’s radar.”
But for months after graduating with a fine arts degree in product design, Gould lived in a constant state of uncertainty, his family urging him to ‘figure it out’, telling him that he had so much promise.
Apparently, they weren’t the only ones who thought so.
First Photo: This is the original BoxenAutzen tee modeled after the ‘Supreme’ logo, with UO’s signature green instead of red. Second Photo: Gould sits in front of the stadium that started it all while modeling some of his own designs. Photo Credit: Noah Gould
In 2020, the company McKenzie Sew-On reached out to him with a proposition: they wanted to help get his products officially licensed by UO, by providing a pipeline to get merchandise approved through UO Brand Management - who they already worked with.
Courtney Atkins, Gould’s Direct Sales Assistant at McKenzie Sew-On says, “I was looking on Instagram because I had seen an athlete wearing his classic OG BoxenAutzen shirt and I said to myself, ‘That is a brand I want to be partners with!’”
At first, Gould thought the opportunity was “too good to be true.” But Gould took the deal and now, two years later, he runs BoxenAutzen with a full production team.
“Noah is truly one of my favorite clients to work with,” says Atkins. “He is passionate about his business, and I am so happy to see him grow and continue to strive for more.”
As Gould grows the business, McKenzie Sew-On handles the licensing of his designs, his manufacturing, shipping, fulfillment, and customer service while he lives in Los Angeles doing design work full-time and works on developing a peer-to-peer E-sport betting platform called “TopDog.”
He draws inspiration from the past, while planning for the future and keeping his cards close to his chest. He doesn’t like people who just talk to talk and says he likes to just “stay quiet and execute.”
But he does have some big moves in the making. Last February, he submitted a project with a major brand in the UO-sphere, and with the new NIL laws he also has plans to help student-athletes build their personal brands. He says he has a couple years’ worth of designs planned out and currently awaiting approval.
“When I was making the bootleg tees, I was kind of working against the university. But now, I want to work with the university. I think there’s so much good stuff to come out of that,” he says.
On September 24, he teamed up with the N.E.S.T, a local Eugene vintage clothing store, to release a limited-edition back-to-school t-shirt. Gould is fascinated by the past and often uses UO history as inspiration for his designs.
BoxenAutzen’s designs have expanded to hoodies as well, like this gray drawstring. Photo Credit: Noah Gould
“The UO has such a rich design history. If you go through the Oregana (UO's yearbook) archives, there are so many amazing Ducks graphics that have been lost in time. So, I really put a lot of emphasis into bringing new life into these old designs that are maybe not being made anymore,” he says.
He’s living his dream of working for himself and says that he plans to “stay local” instead of branching out and designing for other schools or teams.
“I feel if I went to other schools where I know less, I kind of spread myself too thin. And at the end of the day, this is what I really care about,” he says. “For a lot of people, this is their number one thing. They’re Ducks fans. It’s cross-generational and it’s a special and unique market to be in because it’s always expanding.”
For Gould, he came so close to giving up, but now that everything has come full circle, he’s restructured his mindset around manifesting success, building community, never giving up, and taking it one day at a time.
Gould sees everything as “an experiment” and now that he has the university’s full support, he’s excited for the next season with his business, saying that “the sky’s the limit.”
Explore Gould’s merchandise at the Duck Store.
- By Sage Kiernan-Sherrow, UO Alumni Association Student Associate