Athletics Quarterly. Edition 6
Welcome to Athletics Quarterly! The AQ newsletter surfaces ideas and dialogues that embody our values as a brand studio, express our views on business, design and technology, and provide a window into our thinking and culture.
As we say goodbye to 2023 and begin to plan for the holiday season, we wanted to share some of our recent projects along with some of our latest news. We hope you enjoy this edition of Athletics Quarterly!
Brands at Work
Lightweight to Leading-Edge. Chromebook Plus
In 2011, Google introduced the world to a new category of laptops – quick, easy-to-use Chromebooks offering reliable performance and unmatched security on a groundbreaking open-source operating system. Chromebook envisioned a future of quicker, lighter-weight laptops that enable you to do everything you want to on a laptop, without the sluggishness of a heavy operating system. Meet our brand identity for Chromebook Plus, a new category of Chromebooks with double the performance and built-in Google apps and AI capabilities. It was our pleasure to design the new identity system, in collaboration with CATK, This Place, Arts & Letters, Hornet, Huge, and our clients at team Chromebook. We can’t wait to see this functional, flexible system in action as the product rolls out globally.
Community & Learning for Technologists. IBM TechXchange
IBM TechXchange deepens technical expertise with expert-led training, demos, labs, online forums, blogs, webinars, enablement conferences, and more— all tailored to technologists’ specific interests and learning styles. Athletics worked with Blue Studio, IBM’s brand experience and design team, to develop the identity for IBM TechXchange. The IBM TechXchange identity centers around a dynamic grid of elements: a space where different facets of the IBM Technologist community comes together to create and connect.
Workflows Made for People. ShareFile
ShareFile is a fast-growing business that started with a product to help people share and sign documents digitally, easily and securely. It only took off from there. In 2011, this caught the eye of Citrix, which acquired the company and folded it into a portfolio of collaboration tools for work. After over a decade, ShareFile’s leadership elected to decouple the business from Citrix. This gave ShareFile the opportunity to step out and tell its own story, one that reflected an evolution from a focus on file-sharing to a focus on the human elements of modern client experience.
The brand we developed to tell this new story would put people at the center. Every element of the brand system and experience would underscore the ease with which ShareFile helps customers — and their clients — do their best work, unlocking a little everyday magic for users by simplifying communication, smoothing collaboration, and automating repetitive tasks.
At the Water’s Edge. Seattle Sounders FC
In January 2022, Athletics joined as a strategic and creative partner to shape the future of Seattle Sounders FC as it embarks on the next 50 years. Our mission: infuse the Sounders brand with a sense of place and connect it to global soccer culture. To gather authentic insights, we engaged the Sounders community, including Season Ticket Members, the Alliance Council, fans, players, alumni, staff, and local stakeholders. We also delved deep into Puget Sound history and the club’s heritage.
After months of research, we crafted a new strategic foundation that places the Sounders brand spiritually and geographically “At the Water’s Edge.” Our intent was to weave the energy and optimism of the Space Needle more purposefully into the natural world and Puget Sound. We capped off our work by writing a manifesto that brings the club’s heritage into the present, making it relevant for a new generation of fans.
Behind The Design: The making of SSFC’s new visual identity
Let’s Rethink High School. XQ Institute
In 2015 Emerson Collective, led by Laurene Powell Jobs, launched a $50 million project to create high schools based on a new approach to education: XQ Institute. Today XQ is the nation’s leading organization dedicated to rethinking the high school experience so that every student graduates ready to succeed in life. Building from a long term partnership with the Carnegie Foundation, XQ is entering its next chapter where scaling and added maturity is important to its growth and influence. To set the foundation for its evolution, Athletics drove a holistic brand and digital transformation partnering deeply with XQ’s creative team.
Image of the Studio. Data Designer
In 2013, Athletics and the Herb Lubalin Study Center at Cooper Union conceived, curated, and designed the groundbreaking exhibition and website, Image of the Studio, showcasing over 75 contemporary New York graphic design studios and individual practitioners, offering a holistic view into the New York design industry. A decade later, we reunited at the AIGA National Conference to provide fresh insights and perspectives.
For the talk we wanted to do something to encourage individual expression and reflection on what design means today in a format that reflected our current moment.
We created the Image of the Studio Data Designer, a mobile first interactive survey that allows you to create a bespoke animated data visualization to share with friends. It took us about 4 weeks to make and we hope that it encourages you to craft your own portrait of what design means to you in the form of words, data and motion.
Ideas and Dialogues
Athletics Offsite Travel Journal. Palm Springs
Every year Athletics take a few days to set aside work to come together as a studio. This year we had the good fortune to travel to the West Coast and spend some time soaking up the sun in Palm Springs. We hiked over rocks and braved cholla cactus in Joshua Tree, took a soothing sound bath in the Integratron, some of us hiked the Indian Canyons while others took the Aerial Tramway to Mt. San Jacinto State Park. It was a whirlwind three days but well worth the red-eye. Read all about our favorite places to visit in Palm Springs below.
Athletics in the News
Frederic Trigalo and Lucie Covington join Athletics
Athletics is proud to announce Frederic Trigalo as Director of Growth and Lucie Covington as Associate Director of Growth
The Design Observer Twenty
Athletics is honored to partner with Design Observer for their 20th anniversary to support their mission to expand the definition of design in the service of a better world.
Katherine Lee Talks Strategy at AIGA Fresh Dialogues
Katherine Lee joins an expert panel as they discuss breaking open the tension between strategists and designers to create stronger work.
MLS GO in Design Observer
Athletics sits down with Design Observer to discuss our work for MLS GO and the inspirations for the both the logo and name. Lets GOOOOOOO!
Miscellaneous
Miscellaneous is our no-frills round-up of all things inspiring our team. Featuring exhibits, concerts, experiences, reading material, music, and more, we’ve been sharing the things that move us since 2017. This edition features some of our studio’s inspirations this season
Ed Ruscha / Now Then at the MoMA
Ruscha has recorded and transformed familiar subjects—whether roadside gasoline stations or the 20th Century Fox logo—often revisiting motifs, sites, or words years later. Tracing shifts in the artist’s means and methods over time, ED RUSCHA / NOW THEN underscores the continuous reinvention that has defined his work.
Advancing creativity with artificial intelligence.
You don’t raise 141 Million from Google and Nvidia unless you’re doing something right. Runway develops artificial intelligence systems to usher in a new era for creativity where the best stories are yet to be told. Gen 2, Runway’s text to video is pretty incredible.
Art Helps Heaps aims to make creativity accessible to everybody through a sustainable and long term approach to collaboration, and in the process do good and raise awareness of genetic disorders and rare diseases. 100% of net profits raised from the sale of Art Helps Heaps items will be donated to charities involved in the education, research and/or care of those living with a rare disease and/or genetic disorder.
Until next time…
Thank you for reading this installment of Athletics Quarterly.
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In solidarity,
Team Athletics
For more like this, explore our News section and read the previous edition of Athletics Quarterly