TEAM PHOENIX DEVELOPMENT

BRIEF

This project was self initiated. I came up with the concept after my final hand-in at University. I gave myself a brief that would mean that whatever content that I created could be used as if it were to actually be put in place.

Whilst I had considered other self initiated projects to undertake, I decided upon developing the following concept:

CONCEPT

Team Phoenix:
Team Phoenix are Coventry's elite sports teams representing the top level of athleticism. The programme is also a support network, to enhance the sporting experience of Coventry’s Flagship Teams.

This rebrand would make Team Phoenix a recognisable brand that would unify all sports teams under its control. It would also allow supporters to be able to identify any CU/Team Phoenix team with ease.

Coventry University Sport:
CU Sport is a sports network covering all news from Coventry University's sports teams.

This network would in practice allow different courses to work together on various projects, this includes journalists reporting news stories, designers creating artwork, media students creating video archives, and fashion and business and management linked to selling apparel.

Idea Generation:
I first thought of these concepts when I was on my way to gym after I had handed in my final piece of coursework for my degree. I realised that there was a lack of a complete community that supports and celebrates the masses of student athletes across a great volume of teams.

RESEARCH/INSPIRATION

I initiated research by analysing how top level sports teams, such as; Arsenal, and Red Bull Racing display information on their own websites alongside what kind of content they produce for social media and how often they post them. I also looked into how both ticket sales and distribution companies like Ticketmaster, and online forums like Reddit display information and deal with hierarchy in design since an events page and community page would theoretically feature on the website.

Team Phoenix’s house style is inspired by Arsenal’s website, the screen printing process, and by colours already utilised within most Coventry University’s sports teams.

CU Sport is heavily inspired by BBC Sport and other news websites with a focus on sports coverage.

DEVELOPMENT

I originally initiated development of content for this concept in June of 2018 after I had left University and was job searching.

I started by creating the logos and wordmarks for CU Sport and Team Phoenix. After many interactions and changes made to these logos I settled on the ones that you can currently view within my portfolio.

After I had created the logos I tried my hand at creating some posters featuring student athletes. These would be the first pieces of content which would be visually inspired by screen printing.
After creating the poster I had a better idea of what art direction I would like to go down. My next task was to create the website for CU Sport. Since this was my first time creating a website in Adobe XD it took a considerable amount of time longer than expected. However, luckily Adobe XD is much like Illustrator in many senses and does not have that large of a learning curve if you have experience using pre-existing Adobe applications.

Alongside the home page that I designed for the website, I also created a team page, player bio, and video player.

Next on my list were the mockups of banners and posters in situ. For these mockups I actually used pictures that I had taken myself around the Coventry University campus so that the banners would be placed in the correct environment.

Following the creation of the mockups, I designed more print materials. I created flyers describing the concept of Team Phoenix, and why students should join, along with a booklet which would be supplied with the welcome kit.

Lastly I designed a web page for Team Phoenix which would urge students to register with, and resurrect them to CU Sport.

FEEDBACK

My first round of feedback was overwhelmingly positive excluding the fact that I had spelt phoenix as ‘pheonix’ on multiple pieces of content.Other than this my most notable piece of feedback was that the legibility of text when placed over images diminished when the image was lighter in tone.

ROLLOUT

On August 9th 2018 I uploaded this project to my web portfolio, Behance, and The Dots. This project was now at the forefront of my portfolio as it was my most recent project and what I believed to be my best and most complete project to date.

HINDSIGHT

A few months after I had completed this project I was offered a job. Whilst working I developed my skills and understanding of the creative process, design trends, and user interface design.

I noticed that the webpages were not conforming to current design trends, such as; rounded corners and faint drop shadows.

UPDATES

In September 2019 I made changes to the web pages including the rounded corners and drop shadows. However, I also created a layout for what the content displayed on the web pages would look like within a mobile application or a narrow window.

In the same month I was expanding my skills by learning how to write in HTML and CSS. Along my journey to learn these languages I realised that it may be worthwhile to create the designs that I had made within Adobe XD into a functional web page. Over the following months, after work and on the weekends, I would work on improving my understanding of how websites are created by working on the CU Sport webpage.

After a matter of months, on-and-off, I had created my very first functional webpage. This website would go on to be the basis of what led to my web portfolio. The only problem was that it was not responsive, and that the menu was very temperamental. I soon came to the conclusion that the only logical way to include interactive components on a website was for me to learn Javascript.

In February 2020 I started learning about Javascript through W3 Schools and MDN Web Docs. Over the following months, up to today I have learnt a multitude of elements on how to make a website responsive using javascript. This includes the parallax, drop-down menu, trigger points, animations, and responsive components that you see in my portfolio today.