Zavier Foster ’26 Designed the 2026 Class Jacket — Without AI

Zavier Foster ’26 says it was “crazy” to see people in the class jacket he designed during Reunions Weekend. The surreal feeling of the moment was especially notable because his design was not the original winner. 

In December, the Class of 2026’s class jacket competition was surrounded by controversy when Samuel Henriques ’26, who designed the original winning jacket, was called out for allegedly using AI. This led to a Change.org petition signed by more than 600 supporters demanding that the winning jacket should be “created through a human-driven design, rather than an algorithmic generation.” 

Less than a week later, Foster, a politics major with a minor in visual arts, says he got a call minutes before an email went out announcing he was the new winner of the competition. 

He says he stayed out of the initial drama but found the whole situation interesting. “Even if there was a strong coalition of people who petitioned for that design to not be counted, originally a bunch of people voted for that jacket,” he says. He wonders what that says about how people perceive AI-generated designs. 

Though Foster says he doesn’t use AI in his own artistic work, he believes it has a place. “I think AI and art can coexist with intention and literacy.” 

Up until the controversy, his path to submitting a design was quite simple. A lifelong lover of art, especially comics and animation, Foster says several friends encouraged him to enter the competition. He already had several drawings of tigers in his sketchbook, so he picked one and drew additional elements on his iPad using the Procreate app. He came up with the design after several days. 

The black jacket features “2026” on the orange collar, ivy leaves trailing from the shoulders and down the sleeves, and a tiger sitting inside a diamond-shaped white border. During the process of finalizing the design with the Commencement committee for class jackets, members suggested adding embroidery because it has been a popular element on several recent class jackets. 

A native of Hempstead, New York, Foster says designing the jacket was truly a gratifying moment and a nice culmination of his artistic journey through Princeton’s visual arts program. “It’s been a great environment to learn and grow in,” he says. He hopes to work in film or animation one day but will be starting a job in market risk analysis at JP Morgan this summer.