Challenge

In 2019, I worked on a new brand for Steel City World Cup, a soccer tournament that is a grand celebration of Pittsburgh’s vibrant and growing global community. Since Steel City World Cup is a program of PUMP, elements of the new brand would need to connect back to the main PUMP brand, which I helped develop the previous year.

Discovery

To begin the discovery process, I facilitated a mood board brainstorming activity with PUMP’s CEO. This activity is an exercise that I created and often walk stakeholders through as part of a website or brand project kick-off. It helps me to get a better understanding of an event or organization from the people that know it best. Through discovery, I determined that the brand should portray a vibrant celebration and sense of global connection.

Solution

I placed the ‘U’ in cup on a platform to match the elevated ‘U’ in the PUMP logo. The elevated ‘U’ represents the platform that PUMP gives to young professionals in Pittsburgh and will be used to tie all of PUMP’s programs together. I also made use of duotone photography to pull in the PUMP brand, while introducing new colors and fonts to give the program a unique personality. For the logo, I used stylized patterns, vibrant colors and a festive scene to create a logo that captures the atmosphere of the event, while also being recognizable as a world cup logo.

I also built out their brand and provided collateral materials like signage, promotional items, and social media graphics. With the help of my team, we also executed a full rebuild of their site, for which I did the design and development. The functionality built into the site has streamlined many of the tasks that would have consumed their staff in the past and allowed them to focus on making 2019’s event bigger and better than ever.

Role

• UI/UX Designer
• Print Designer
• Front-end Developer

Deliverables

• Research
  • Stakeholder Interviews
• Print Materials
  • Bags
  • Flyer
  • Logo
  • Shirts
  • Signage
  • Stickers
• Web Materials
  • Brand Board
  • Digital Ads
  • Promotional Toolkit
  • Social Media Graphics
  • Website (Design and Development)

Tools

• Illustrator
• Adobe XD
• Google Suite
• WordPress
• Indesign
• Photoshop