SPORTS CLUB
Full Site - Design & DEvElopment
During my time at a communications agency in 2020, I was tasked with creating a website for a local Rugby team.
After face-to-face discussions with the client, we established the needs of the website, and it's future users. I designed the website with Axure RP, and built the final site in Wordpress as a custom theme.
∙ Wireframes & Prototyping
∙ Graphic Design
∙ Custom HTML, CSS, Javascript
∙ Wordpress CMS Solution (PHP)
Idea Development
The client wanted a place to share their results, update team rosters for their fans to follow, and post news and events that would be happening at the club.
With an open conversation about the site with the client, I could establish the pages and stucture needed for the website. Using pen and paper, the basis of the website was created during this first meeting.
The site map and prototyping was then completed digitally and feedback was collected before moving on to the development stage.
Development
Once the client validated the site map and requirements, I researched sports websites, looking at trends and conventions on professional sports teams websites (Rugby, Football, Basketball).
Common established conventions helped steer my design choices, such as using the team colours for the main colour scheme (a given), and using high quality large action photography.
The design was then prototyped and sent digitally to the client to test and validate. Here is the final version of the homepage.
The red highlight from the player's kit was used for buttons with a hover animation that moves the arrow, to encourage the user to explore the different sections of the site.
Spotlight
For the CMS, we used Wordpress so the client could keep their site updated after launch.
I created a news section for the club to update with events and news, and linked a widget for league table positions and upcoming match fixtures which would update the site via a third party service.
A custom field for players and staff was created in the back-end so the client could easily manage and update the team lineups.
Outcome
The site was a learning curve for me using Wordpress, I had to learn the template hierarchy whilst working on the project. This challenged me to learn new techniques whilst also building a client project.
Creating a custom site from a child theme pushed my skills to the next level with Wordpress and PHP and helped me straight away with other projects.
Objectively, the site achieves its goals and the client was able to update the site with their content following some brief instruction to the marketing & social team.
