Augusta Active | Sportswear eCommerce

Direct-to-Consumer Brand & Website Initiative

About the Company

Augusta Sportswear Group (ASG) is a sportswear company that’s been around for almost 40 years and is a leader in the team wear marketplace. ASG is the overall holding company for a number of brands that includes Augusta Sportswear, Holloway, High Five, Bomark and Discount Dance. ASGs vision was to launch, for the first time, a direct-to-consumer channel and build a solid and well-known brand for Augusta Sportswear to be dubbed: Augusta Active.

Website: AugustaActive.com

My Objective

My objective as the brand developer and digital designer:

Since 1977, Augusta Sportswear has been manufacturing high-performance activewear for teams, coaches and individual athletes. This new initiative, Augusta Active, brings their quality product to the general public. Built on the responsive Magento platform, I based their new branding on the bright, active persona they wanted to release to the world through this campaign.

Process At-A-Glance

Attend thorough Discovery sessions with the client to gather requirements
Write a Creative Brief to guide the brand development
Create three different moodboards to help narrow in on the new brand look-and-feel
Mock up all key page designs for desktop, tablet, and mobile
Creative a digital style guide so the team at Augusta can continue to maintain the brand on the website, in banners, and through social media

The Trigger

Client challenges, which sparked this initiative

To transition an athleticwear company from: checking the inside tag of your old high school jersey and saying “oh yeah, August Sportswear” over to: “I know exactly where to get my new running/yoga/dance/lounge clothes” …well, that’s a tall order. ASG needed a bright and fun brand foundation to empower the Augusta Active team for launch and beyond.

Goals for the brand initiative:

Make it fun, friendly, and dynamic:
Psyching yourself up for long run is hard enough, finding great athleticwear shouldn’t be.
Make it lifestyle-focused:
There’s nothing worse than generic athletic stock photography.
Make it trustworthy and reliable:
This new venture will need to piggyback off of ASG’s 40 years of brand promise, but with its own unique vibe.
Create a foundation that can thrive and mature over time:
The look-and-feel has to be fresh, contemporary, but also timeless and easy to maintain as August Active grows.

My Solution

A glimpse into my project lifecycle

MOODBOARDS

I created a three separate Moodboards based on feedback we received about the type of customers Augusta wanted to reach.

MOODBOARD 1 • FIND YOUR SUMMIT

Dynamic lines, rugged texture, and bold red hues suggest power, achievement, and success. The muted style of photography enhances the product so it can speak without distraction. The palette: a foundation for the bold color of Augusta’s product line. The typeface: I chose Exo based on the athletic, tech-style typeface in the Augusta logo, and balanced it with Open Sans Italic to softens the hard edges and stark palette.

AugustaActive_MoodBoard-v1_01

Find Your Summit is all about pushing your limits to get to the top. This mood board drives the intended emotion to the furthest end of the spectrum we outlined in our creative brief. While dynamic, powerful, and encouraging, it could alienate a customer base who isn’t seeking out an adventurous, rugged experience.

AugustaActive_MoodBoard-v1_02

MOODBOARD 2 • GO FARTHER PLAY LONGER

Dynamic lines, uncluttered design, and hyper-saturated colors suggest vibrancy, spirit, and motivation. The bright style of photography enhances the overall sense of positivity and ambition. Typeface Roboto Condensed Bold Italic acts like a personal trainer, while friendly Source Sans is your go-getter bestie who gets you up at 5am.

AugustaActive_MoodBoard-v2_01

Go Farther Play Longer is all about pushing limits, but above all else: Go Play! This mood board sits comfortably inside the spectrum we outlined in our creative brief. The photography and palette evoke happiness, without being too contrived. The airy and vivid color palette used in this board might occasionally clash with the heavier, bolder palette of Augusta’s product line, so conscious color pairings of Augusta product and brand palette would have to be made.

AugustaActive_MoodBoard-v2_02

MOODBOARD 3 • PUSH PLAY

Circular patterns with bright, bold colors suggest effervescent energy. The black and white photography direction coupled with large circle color blocks enhance the product so it can speak without distraction. This also acts as a foundation for the bold color of Augusta’s product line. Typeface Roboto Condensed Bold Italic is like a cheerleader paired with the softer, friendlier Source Sans.

AugustaActive_MoodBoard-v3_01

Push Play is all about pushing limits while having a blast. This third mood board sits comfortably in between boards 1 and 2 inside the spectrum we outlined in our creative brief. The photography and palette evoke power, movement, and happiness, without being too rugged or domineering.

AugustaActive_MoodBoard-v3_02

USER INTERFACE STYLE GUIDE

I created an entire UI Style Guide based on the client’s choice of Moodboard 2 to maintain visual continuity during the design phase of the website screens.