With an already established logo, I was tasked with building the brand for the newest NCAA bowl game taking place in Los Angeles, the City of Angels. It was essential to capture a true Southern California experience and the heart of college football. We found that storytelling draws many parallels in both worlds. The underdog, the bright lights, being center-stage... that’s showbiz, baby!
Capturing the essence of Los Angeles was key to the narrative of the main color palette. Taking inspiration from colors of the city, a 3-color palette was born. LA Gold, Sunset, and Night Sky serve as the basis to paint the picture of the city’s newest stage.
A secondary color palette was developed as a way to highlight the different conferences and serve as an accent: Golden Hour, High Tide, Mountain West Purple and PAC 12 Blue.
Pulling from the main identity, we developed a narrative behind the brand based on the LA Bowl’s elements: LA, Palm Trees, and the Stadium. We released three pieces on social media to introduce the look and feel for the brand while planting the seeds for the storyline.
We implemented a traditional marketing and advertising plan alongside a brand rollout in stadium and across gameday applications. I designed brand-in-action examples to illustrate concepts to the team at SoFi Stadium and developed guidelines to execute all pieces.
END RESULT: Released in early 2020, the LA BOWL brand identity created a buzz around the NCAA. With the game postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I worked along with my team, and the team at SoFi to take advantage of the time we were given to further develop the brand. When the overall brand debuts later in 2021, be ready for the spotlight to shine on college football in LA once again.