Intro

Spikeball is a fast growing company, from collaborating with new partnerships and brands to organizing thousands of tournaments all around the world.

As the company and sport grows, inconsistent designs and messaging is bound to happen without a guideline in place. It became very clear that there needed to be a more systematic way.

Problem

Inconsistent designs and messaging communicate different experiences to customers, resulting in a loss of brand trust and awareness.

Having consistent branding helps customers have the same experiences when interacting with the company. Since the early days of Spikeball, branding was never set in place and thus resulted in one-off solutions for marketing assets.

This resulted in inconsistent designs and messaging across the company. Time was also wasted explaining the brand to different team members and partnerships.

Solution

In order to create a brand identity that can be easily communicated, internally and externally, I sought to create a guideline that can:

• Keep everyone on the same page. As the Spikeball team grows, a set of standards ensures everyone is clear on how to represent the brand.

• Is easily accessible. A guide that holds the company’s identity, direction, messaging, and use of design assets should be easily accessible and shareable.

• Drive customer retention and loyalty. Brand identity is what connects Spikeball with customers and the roundnet community. It’ll be what brings them back time and again.

Brand Guidelines

Mission, Vision

The mission acts as the backbone that influences everything Spikeball does. All of the decisions are made with the mission in mind, from which products to carry to social media messaging to pricing strategies.

Voice

Spikeball’s voice should always:

Be witty, but not try hard.

• Plain-spoken, not pretentious or overly playful

• Dad jokes and witty one-liners are encouraged

Be authentic, not cliché or manicured.

• The reader should feel as though they are talking to a close friend, not their boss

• Humorous, personable, sarcastic but upfront and honest, even if a mistake is made

• Never use the phrases “to be honest” or “work hard, play hard”

Be self-aware, but not uncomfortable.

• Communicate in a respectful way that understands emotion and context

Be inclusive, but not a people pleaser.

• Hype people up 🔥

• Don’t overexplain with repeating content

Typography

Sailec was chosen to match the casual playfulness of the brand and United Sans for the competitive realm.

Color

Logo

Graphics

Photography

Online product photography should be clean and easily differentiated. Product photos were also updated with graphics to highlight new and improved features.

Lifestyle photography should clearly display both players and the product. The photos should focus on the excitement, fun, intensity, and communal inclusivity of the sport. Through multiple shoots, I was able to capture all types of play (both competitive and casual) and created new marketing assets for the company to use.

Conclusion

After successfully launching to the company, I was able to upload this brand guideline onto our digital asset management account with Bynder. This gave employees easy access, not just to the guideline but to all brand assets, allowing them to easily share with other partnerships and accounts.