A brief that was being tackled by Rockfield media and also the project I began working on the day I arrived as part of a team. The branding for a large scale Manchester BMX racing competition had already been completed with the name being developed from Manchester Grands to Manchester X races. The advertising campaign was the next stage of this brief, something being tackled by me and Jamie Smith, where I'd be taking an advertising role and working with Jamie to design.
The problem en counted by Rockfield was that the competitors in the competition couldn't be named Xracers as it would sound as if they were retired BMXers, they were looking for suggestions to replace the name to which I commented "they could be called Xtreme races, Xplosive racers, Xcting races" etc, which the idea went down amazingly, forming the basis for an entire advertising campaign.
Essentially branding BMX as a UK sport due to the fact that BMX isn't massively popular and doesn't have any immediate colours or styles associated with the sport.
The Research
Research commenced into BMX branding, looking at previous examples, main focuses included BMX at the olympics which uses a lot of red and union jack colours. Generally BMX and skating has a relationship with graffiti culuture and a strong connection to rock/punk music, since Xraces was going to be a commercial family friendly event in Manchester looking to draw in existing and new fans to the event, strong use of graffiti or a punk style could scare away a certain audience.
It was stated how the image of certain BMX racers should be used, one of the racers being Liam Phillips as he is currently a massive name in UK BMX and also his dad would be at the pitch for the brief therefore would be very relatable for him to see.
Emphasis was made on the racers appearing fluid and in motion on the posters to display how exciting the sport could be.
Research took place into other currently popular UK sports that worked across as wide audience of men and women and the design surrounding these, football was the obvious choice for UK sports, being respected by a massive audience and earning masses of money worldwide.
Idea generation
The colours black and yellow stood out massively as no other sports made obvious use of this colour scheme, black and yellow signified the colours of a warning which younger fans found to be really cool and also yellow was extremely eye catching and related to punk culture subtly.
Fluidity and movement in sports was looked into and it was discovered that FIFA Ultimate team had great branding, was really popular and also seen as a cool and contemporary game for younger people to play. FIFA's Ultimate team's branding revolved around gold colours which obviously in sport represented winners and the elite, these colours were implemented in conjunction with the BMX racers but didn't work as successfully as the original black and gold colour scheme.
Development
Ongoing feedback was being given between me, Jamie and the boss who was overlooking us completeing the project. The was the collaboration between me and Jamie took place is I would research ideas and concepts, begin to mock them up using software and then feed the ideas to Jamie who would then develop them using his more improved design skills.
Together we work well as a team, working fast and efficiently managing to complete the entire campaign after two days on the brief.
Feedback and comments between us, the boss and the account handler (who would be pictching the brief) kept the project rolling and the brief being honed down to suit the clients.
As the designs came to an ultimate stage I was the one mocking up the designs onto billboards and poster located found all over Manchester, these were then mounted onto boards which would be taken into the pitch with the client.
Outcome
The final designs for this brief were some that I am very pleased with and as a team we were all happy with the outcomes.The pitch to the client went amazingly and Rockfield have been selected to complete the designs therefore we will be revisiting this brief later in the year and the advertising campaign created by me and Jamie will be up all over Manchester center, including their biggest central shopping center, Manchester Arndale.
The design for the campaign will be developed with not many aesthetic changes being made, but with more BMX riders being involved and then websites, tickets etc being created.
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