Fanning the flames of enthusiasm
How design patterns keep “the stoke” alive on Redbull.com
From the moment you arrive on RedBull.com there’s only one thing for you to do: Get stoked.
The homepage of the famous energy drink company is a master class on how to apply design flows and patterns to showcase killer content.
On RedBull.com it doesn’t matter what your native discipline is. All that matters is the stoke, and this is where the various Red Bull teams and content creators play a critical role. At no point in your visit are you more than three clicks away from experiencing something epic.
This leading role of original content is a key feature aimed specifically at the digitally-savvy Red Bull audience. Not only does their design draw on the best patterns from social media, it combines them with more “traditional” designs from blogs, magazines, event calendars and online retailers. Attention-screaming visuals, accentuated in bright, contrasting blues and reds, create an expressive and vibrant visual language.
In terms of architecture, the site actually follows a very basic structure. There’s a homepage slider with the day’s featured stories, followed by an infinite-scroll of story cards from Red Bull’s amazing roster of content creators. A simple navigation bar introduces the user to the site’s four main content sections;
TV — An on-demand video streaming platform with an endless stream of extreme excursions.
The most prominent pattern in this section is a full-bleed, auto-play, video loop. Not only does it give a taste of the content to come, but it makes the entire page more dynamic.
Taking this further, most of the content cards animate similarly when you hover over them, providing a sense of movement throughout.
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Events — An online calendar of the raddest Red Bull events from around the world.
This section relies heavily on filters to curate and refine relevant content to each user. Apart from the featured events in the header of the page, the entire section is dedicated to searching and filtering the raddest Red Bull events from all over the globe.
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Athletes — A page to help you find your favourite athlete or discover the hottest prospects from your discipline or hood.
Much like the Events section before it, this section also relies on a basic filter pattern. Where it differs is in its use of a Pocket pattern to ration the overwhelming number of athletes you see. This is clever. And it reinforces the main mechanic of the page, filtering. However, should a user want to browse further, they have an option to quickly pull up the next 20 athletes.
Products — A serene merch’ section for everything Red Bull. From ski jackets to bike helmets and all the energy drinks in between.
This is the only section of the page that does not pepper you with original content. This self-awareness creates a brilliant sense of contrast and separation where the product finally takes centre stage. Red Bull understands that if you’re here, you’re probably thinking of buying something. As such their classic slogan leads charge while a prominent button invites you deeper into the sales funnel.
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Red Bull.com is one of my favourite sites. The brand “gets” that you’re not necessarily here for a caffeinated beverage, and instead choose to give you a caffeinated experience. This site feels like a Red Bull, and not the no sugary one either.
By placing your attention solely on their athletes, teams and adventures, RedBull.com is a natural continuation of the brands’ 30-year commitment to support action sports. I dare you to go ten minutes on here without succumbing to that tingling need to jump off, over, or onto something.
