3d Lacrosse: Brand Identity, Events, Social and Web

Objective + Results

Over a three-year retained engagement, T. Adam Martin worked as remote creative director for 3d Lacrosse, a Denver-based youth lacrosse company with teams and events across North America, alongside its three-person marketing team. The work grew with the company, from a brand system for 15 markets to national event campaigns, daily social and a recruiting website.

Each project below has its own section.

credits

CLIENT
3d Lacrosse

DIRECTOR OF MARKETING
Brooke Farrell, 3d Lacrosse

PHOTOGRAPHER
Chris Radcliffe Photography

CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATOR
Adam Eargle

CREATIVE DIRECTOR
T. Adam Martin, T/A Martin Studio

Services Provided

›› Research
›› Brand Strategy
›› Identity System
›› Creative Direction
›› Event Branding
›› Social Media
›› User Interface Design

Brand strategy · identity system

Market Identity System

3d Lacrosse, a fast-growing, Denver-based youth lacrosse company founded by a former Ivy League coach, owns select teams and events in markets across North America. As the company's retained agency partner, T/A Martin Studio was engaged to diagnose and solve a branding problem brought on by rapid growth and a few acquisitions.

Research revealed the brand was becoming diluted. Each local market was setting its own logo in the same free font used for the corporate 3d Lacrosse wordmark, so the wordmark was no longer unique, and anyone, including competitors, could type out their own version. Each market also used its own symbols at different shapes and sizes, which made it impossible to give every team equal visual weight on uniforms, apparel, and social avatars.

The markets were passionate about keeping their individuality, and the CEO did not want to change the wordmark. So the studio built a strategy and guidelines that isolate the 3d wordmark in every instance of the brand, and designed a logo system within a containing roundel with consistent X and Y-axis weight. A secondary typography system handles market names of any length, while the top half of each roundel allows custom color and illustration.

The system let each market keep its own identity while staying cohesive with its sister markets and giving the 3d Lacrosse wordmark prominence on every team. It positioned the brand to scale into new markets with strict guidelines for building each new logo.

The solution: one roundel structure for every market. The 3d Lacrosse wordmark sits isolated in the same position and weight on all 15 logos, a secondary type system fits market names of any length, and the top half of each roundel leaves room for that market's own colors and illustration.

The audit: we placed every existing market logo on an identical grid to see how they compared side by side. Each one took up a different shape and aspect ratio, so no two carried the same visual weight on social avatars, collateral, or uniforms, and most borrowed the corporate wordmark's font.

The free-font problem: the 3d Lacrosse wordmark was set in a free font, so anyone could type out a convincing copy, as this “colacrosse” example shows. The new guidelines isolate the 3d wordmark in every use so it stays unique to the corporate brand.

Every market keeps its own personality, from Colorado's flag to Upstate's trout to the Lone Star of Texas, while every logo reads instantly as part of one 3d Lacrosse family.

3d Lacrosse rolled out the new logo system to its markets on social media, including this launch of the 3d Upstate logo.

event branding

USA TODAY Sports Great State Showdown

For the USA TODAY Sports Great State Showdown, a national tournament of state teams run by 3d Lacrosse, the studio built the recruiting campaign around one line, We Want You, carried from outdoor advertising to the recruiting slick and postcard.

Outdoor advertising.

The recruiting slick.

The postcard, with a hand-illustrated pattern of lacrosse gear icons in place of the stars.

Social · 15 markets

As part of a 3-year retained engagement with 3d Lacrosse, T. Adam Martin integrated with a 3-person marketing team in Denver, CO as remote creative director for the company. During his tenure with the brand, he led the visual design, brand strategy, art direction, and product design initiatives for numerous projects ranging from social media graphics to websites, to creative project management to marketing collateral and branding. Below are a variety of social media projects created for 3d Lacrosse as the company grew from a few markets to 15 markets throughout North America including Instagram/Facebook/Twitter images and Snapchat Geo-tags.

Social media manager: Brianna Huynh, 3d Lacrosse. Designers: T. Adam Martin and Brittany Durham, T/A Martin Studio.

3drising.com · website

3d Rising

As part of a retained engagement with parent company 3d Lacrosse, the studio led the website design of 3drising.com, a new platform similar to Rivals.com covering recruiting in the lacrosse industry.

Led by Creative Director T. Adam Martin, the studio designed wireframes, submitted branding concepts and created the pixel perfect user interface mockups of the website's main pages which were then handed off to 3d Lacrosse's retained web development team for implementation.

Beyond the site, the studio created the event branding for the Rising Showcase Series, 3d’s DIII showcase events, from the series graphic to the printed STX Rising DIII Showcase flyers.

Developer: Rehab Creative.

Player profile.

The homepage, a player profile and player search on mobile.

Full 3d Rising homepage: feature story, recruiting news, 3d Rising TV and articles — The full homepage on desktop.

The full player profile page on desktop.

RISING Showcase Series graphic: a lacrosse player leaping over blue RISING lettering on an orange field — The Rising Showcase Series graphic for 3d’s DIII showcase events.

A stack of STX Rising DIII Showcase flyers on a dark desk — STX Rising DIII Showcase flyer.