A tech brand with some attitude.

Case Study: LeagueApps Rebrand

Stanley Chen
Sep 4, 2018 · 7 min read

When we think about the visual presence of tech companies, we often associate them with a particular look and feel. Maybe the images you think of are sophisticated product porn on a billboard, or goofy 2D characters dancing on your mobile screen, or a colorful logo on the most used website ever. Whatever comes to mind, we can’t deny that the Silicon Valley tech scene has created a visual landscape with tremendous societal influence that permeates the culture that we are living today.

People value design more than ever, thanks to the tech giants. They have undeniably democratized design by making the average Joe aware of its existence, or at least acknowledge how it makes them feel. However, design trends are inevitably formed with the rise of tech companies especially startups, and all of a sudden you see a lot of them following the trend. I am talking about the world of Dribble, where everything looks polished, glossy, “clean”, but sort of bland. Most of them don’t make a strong statement nor do they stand out. This is caused by businesses that value function over beauty and convention over provocation. Not saying we should neglect familiarity, but as designers, we ought to think about how to disrupt and bring surprise and delight to the world. Eventually, we need to prove what Thomas J. Watson said: “good design is good business.”

How did it start?

Through a mutual friend, I was introduced to the team at LeagueApps—a fast-growing, venture-backed sports management company using data and technology to build the largest community around youth and local sports. They wanted me to help them develop the new brand identity as they are going through a major strategic shift within the company. The following is the result of our collaboration. I see this case study not only as “Viola! We did it!”, but also an examination of how the process unfolds.

Why do they need a rebrand?

With an up-coming website/product launch and a new strategy redefining and elevating the company mission, values, attributes and narratives, they need a new identity and visual language to match the future vision. It’s the perfect time to redesign the identity because the company has evolved and was about to scale drastically. They were also getting ready to move to a new location, and have a big company-wide seminar.

Even though the old logo had carried the company since its inception, there are some problems: Blue was used commonly by competitors such as Blue Star and SportsEngine, so they don’t stand out enough for their customers to notice the difference visually. The visual presence of the brand was in a very familiar tech space that lack personality and surprises. Besides the logo, there isn’t a strong design language that they can build equity on. The logo was merely a word mark that does not include symbol and lock-ups, made it not versatile enough to scale and place in a variety of sizes and context. The thin weight slab serif also does not convey the company’s authority and innovative approach to youth and local sports industry. Therefore, the team was eager to create a more timeless and relevant brand identity that better represents who they are, what they believe, and what they do.

What’s the approach?

During the briefing and brainstorming session, one thing that occurred over time was that even though LeagueApps is a tech company, the employees perceive it as more of a sports company because that’s the field they serve. Their clients are local sports organizers, coaches, and parents. Everyone is a fan and a sport-obsessed. The LeagueApps team sees the Nelson Mandela quote below as the company’s mantra. So we identify that the notion of sport and athleticism should play an important role in brand development because it’s authentic to the organization. But at the same time, we also have to keep in mind the tech aspect of the company. Success would be a logo that looks just as good on a jersey, as it does on a software product.

“Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand.” —Nelson Mandela

After rounds of discussion, discovery, explorations, and reviews, we finally land on a direction that everyone is happy with.

Logo: Sports with a twist of tech

We distill the essence of sport and technology by combining the bold letterman jacket style “L” and the line quality of a circuit board. The new logo aims to be iconic and universal. It needs to be confident enough to make a statement by itself, as well as flexible enough to appear alongside a wide range of new applications.

Color: Sunny day on a sports field

Color helps make our communications distinctive. We created a color palette using 3 different greens, yellow and blue to reflects what athletes see when they play — sports field, sun and sky.

Design System: Remix of sports visual elements

I want the design to feel as energetic and exhilarating as sports itself. Therefore, the system is designed to be very open with an organic grid allowing the logo, typography, imagery, and sports fields inspired graphic elements to be free and expressive, depending on the context.

Typography: New interpretation of classics

We use Din Pro as our primary typeface for headline and caption. Originally designed for industrial uses, Din was, later on, adapted for general purpose use beyond its original intention for its modern, precise, legible and slightly condense nature, made it well equipped to communicate the combination of sport and technology. Arial is one of the most commonly used typefaces. It’s also a system typeface for a majority of the operating system. It’s what the LeagueApps team has been using for all presentation and documents. Empathizing the fact that it would be hard for them not to use this, we decided to make it our secondary typeface for body copy.

Photography: Macro and Micro sports experience

Photography is an important way for us to communicate the emotive stories of organizers, coaches and athletes. We aim to convey the celebration of people and the power of sports.

Macro: We represent organizers and coaches who manage teams using aerial photography. We utilize top-down straight angle drone photography of different sports fields as our contextual hero imagery to communicate the brand’s holistic organized sports experience.

Micro: We represent athletes and coaches using lifestyle photography. We capture authentic moments and behaviors of sports teams to tell benefit-driven stories showing real action, emotions, and environments.

Applications: Simple but confident

The logo was used across different medium including signage, website, swag, and banner.

Guideline: Inform and inspire

Lastly, I built out the identity guideline for the internal design team to reference. It’s vital that they can feel encouraged and take the liberty to create. While logo usage is fairly strict, the design system is flexible, allowing an abundance of variation and expressions.

LeagueApps’ new visual identity reflects the company’s ambitions with personality and attitude. The visuals have a distinctive look and feel, which makes it recognizable. All evolved around the new logo that blends sport and tech, conveying simple ideas in a way that’s authentic to the brand.

Special thanks to Maggie Hogan, Javier Rios, Brian Litvack, and Jeremy Goldberg from LeagueApps for the opportunity to collaborate on this project. It wouldn’t be possible without your trust and support. And thanks to Ray Smiling for the introduction.

Thanks for reading! Learn more about my work here.

Stanley Chen

Written by

Designer and Art Directer based in Los Angeles. www.stanleychen.info

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