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USA TODAY
SPORTS
PROJECT SCOPE
Art Direction
Branding
Social Media Design
Digital Design
Audience Strategy
Illustration
BACKGROUND
As a designer on the main audience team, I get to interact with a lot of different sections in the newsroom, including Sports. Sports is a fun section to design for because they have such a wide array of content and pictures. With the sports account, I've been able to explore so many aspects of the sports desk, like live event coverage, long tournament/championships and even the world's biggest event, the Olympics.
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REBRAND
DIFFERENTIATING THE BRAND EXPERIENCE
USA TODAY Sports was the first section I rebranded after doing a major overhaul to the main USAT account. With sports content I felt the brand needed a shift towards modernity with straight sans-serif fonts and weights, curved lines and shapes and templates that keep the brand consistent.
ESTABLISHING STYLE
LINES AND CURVES GALORE
Sports has a unique content set compared to other sections, there's a lot more action shots with exciting angles, tons of commentary and a diverse range of linear graphics like brackets and schedules. This plays into the "modern" feel of the brand, in which I can use lines to make a wide range of graphics, while still sticking to the brand guidelines.
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This is one of my favorite social graphics ever
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WINNER CARDS
MAKING A CHAMPIONSHIP WINNING WORTHY GRAPHIC
Collaboration between sections is a key strategy to USAT's marketing on Instagram. When it comes to collabing with sports, a bulk of my work comes around specific final games and championships like the NCAA Basketball tournament or even special events like the Mike Tyson V. Jake Paul fight. With each event, I try to change up the design of the winner graphic, so our account stays fresh and is "worthy" of that title.
ILLUSTRATION
DIGITAL TRADING CARDS
In the sports world, although each event is unique in what happens, there are similar themes and storylines each season. Often I'll receive a pitch for a story that has a long list of athletes along with either ranking or a number of significance. To keep things fresh and exciting visually, I like to make digital playing cards that we can use as assets for the story and social posts, a little nod to sports fans.
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Does it get more "sports" than playing cards?
2024 PARIS OLYMPICS
BRANDING FOR THE WORLD'S BIGGEST EVENT
Probably one of my favorite projects at USAT was getting to set the brand and overall look of the newsroom's coverage of the 2024 Paris Olympics. With the Olympics set in France and our audience focus on US athletes, it was obvious that we would go with a red, white and blue theme for our visuals. On top of that, inspired by the Olympic committee's colorful and eccentric style, I played a lot with 2-D/3-D illustration and vibrant colors.
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Simone Biles was my favorite athlete to cover. There was always amazing visuals to work with, making my job as easy as can be
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These 3-D esque medal counts were such a fun way to visualize the medal count without a table
Hours and hours of work went into learning how to use After Affects for this 10 second animation
SLAYING THE BEAST THAT IS AFTER EFFECTS
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Connecting to the trading cards (see above), with the Olympics I wanted to something even more special than before. I tried my hand at animating on After Effects for the first time, to make the playing cards spin and flex like an actual physical card.
Did you get a bingo?
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MARKETING THE OLYMPICS IN A NON SPORTY WAY?
Along with the daily news coverage of events, my colleagues and I also developed a variety of marketing tactics that could pull in readers from all different backgrounds. Whether you were a music fan or a avid bingo player, there was a place for everyone at USAT's Olympics homebase.
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CRAFTING VISUALS
CAITLIN CLARK
STANDS ALONE
Just like Taylor Swift with Life and Entertainment, it seems like you couldn't escape Caitlin Clark coverage with Sports. Although a challenge with the enormous amount of content on her, designing around Caitlin's records and historic moments was a great way to flex my design muscle.
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SUPER BOWL
This story's graphics are a highlight for me. The use of poker chips made the story more engaging, in my opinion.
THE PINNACLE OF LIVE EVENT COVERAGE
At USA Today, I've covered two Super Bowls, and both were great experiences for me in designing live and adapting to the constantly changing nature of sports, on the highest level. The Super Bowl is a great example of how good preparation will set you up for a successful and smooth night.
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I'll never forget aggressively typing and searching for song names as the TV was blasting "Not Like Us"
This project was so visually pleasing to create, because my favorite color is green
2025 NFL DRAFT
THE DRAFT IS
IN GREEN BAY? GREEN VISUALS IT IS.
The 2025 NFL draft was a project that started with just one request for a story visual which then spiraled into social graphics, and eventually setting up a whole entire brand. With the draft set in Green Bay, Wisconsin, It felt only natural that the overall color scheme would be green.
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