The arrival of Aug. 1 means college programs across the country can send out official scholarship offer letters to rising seniors.

But as verbal scholarship offers turn into official ones, no team is more likely to catch their recruit's attention with letters than East Carolina.

Going all in with their Pirate mascot theme, ECU - led by the creative minds of director of player personnel Ethan Johnson and recruiting quality control coordinator Kevin Slattery - have produced one of the more unique and well-constructed offer letters the recruiting world has ever seen.

The letter, which has a burnt outer edge and golden brown paper reminiscent of a classic Pirate letter or treasure map look, and is sealed with a custom wax purple Jolly Roger logo seal, was hand-constructed by the Pirates' creative recruiting room. ECU sent out approximately 30 of the official scholarship letters on Tuesday.

ECU, looking to show its creativity on one of the most important recruiting days of the year, wanted to get back to more of its roots of building the brand around Pirate-themed items.

"The biggest thing that stuck out to us is we're very unique as the Pirates," Johnson said. "With Pirates, there's a lot that encompasses that. Treasure maps, cannons, Pirate ships, all sorts of things. When you look around the rest of the country, other programs don't have all the options we have. A Blue Devil is a Blue Devil. There are only so many things you can do there. The Tigers are the Tigers. You're limited there. As Pirates, we're unique and we want to use that."

Johnson and Slattery came up with the idea to do the letter around a month ago and it's been Slattery's primary objective ever since.

"It's another thing we can show to the country some of the special things we are doing here," Slattery said. "It's almost like a mini signing day and we want to make sure we show everybody what we're capable of. We wanted to do something that really embraced the Pirate theme. That's something that we're trying to do a lot this year and get back into that side of things."

Slattery took lead on the design and production of the letter, which also has a digital version that will be sent to prospects on Tuesday before the actual letters arrive in the mail. He went through different prototypes and styles before deciding on a version he was satisfied with.

To avoid spending unnecessary funds, Slattery and ECU did all the custom work themselves. He got the paper from the university's print shop and stained each one with coffee grounds before burning the edge of the paper himself. The custom purple wax seal was Johnson's idea to put the finishing touches on the letter and give it a custom look.

Slattery said each letter probably took around 45 minutes to an hour to complete separately. For someone who typically works on a computer coming up with digital designs for recruiting purposes or with the football team's twitter account, Slattery enjoyed the hands-on project.

"If the recruit can hold a tangible piece of something and he can tell a lot of time went into it, and he enjoys it, then the time is well worth it," Slattery said. "It was nice to get away from Photoshop for a while and work on something with my hands, and give recruits something tangible to hold. It was a fun experience."

The addition of Slattery in October of 2016 has given ECU's recruiting department a different dimension. Along with a full plate of organizing visits, sending out mail and a host of other items, Johnson used to handle the majority of the graphics and projects sent out to recruits until Slattery was introduced last fall.

Since then, more images from recruits, like these with top running back target Coleton Beck, and other graphics to commitments, have surfaced as the Pirates look to stay at the forefront of college football's ever-changing recruiting landscape.

"I think the formulation of adding someone from the creative side like him was big for our team," said Johnson, who came over with head coach Scottie Montgomery from Duke in December of 2015. "It took a lot off my plate and allowed us to get into that realm where college football is going as far as graphics, and unique designs for recruiting. The big thing for us is trying to work smarter and not always harder, and save money. This was something we pretty much did all under our roof. The addition of a guy like Kevin, who's really more of our creative director than what his title might say, has allowed us to do some of these special things."

NOTE: The misspelling of "scholarship" at the top of the letter has been caught by ECU's program and is in the process of being corrected quickly.