Rays City Connect Campaign
Art Direction • Graphic Design • Photography • Marketing • Web Design • Brand
Developing an authentic campaign to tell the story of Tampa Bay skateboarding, underground art, music, and culture and its parallels with Rays baseball was an honor and a dream come true.
To match the huge release of the Rays Nike City Connect Uniforms, we had to draw on real experience and include our community. Skating, punk, hardcore, hip-hop, street art are all worlds that have a nose that can sniff out fakes and pretenders.
With so many new brand marks and details on the “Grit and Glow” uniform, we had to nail the launch.
I had the privilege to design, direct, and take the lead on the entire 360-degree visual campaign. That meant adding barbed wire, chain link, and vibrant colors to our ballpark activations, advertisements, social, digital, and every other touch point we could find.
We noticed all previous City Connect launch websites from other MLB teams were simply ported from the desktop version.
We wanted to be the first MLB team to launch with a unique mobile version.
We had to make mobile excellent first.
I was able to collaborate directly with the wildly talented Sonny, of Sonny James Creative on custom scratch-made flash illustrations to celebrate city connect.
A skater, an artist and a fan of hardcore punk and sports, Sonny was the perfect fit.
City Connect
Mascot Illustration
City Connect called for a slightly edge-y version of the Rays mascot, Raymond. I was able to draw the sea cow as a tagging street artist.
The illustration was featured on a skate deck giveaway to all fans.
I also was able to get him into a fun billboard campaign.
SUCCESS!
The Rays Nike City Connect uniform launch campaign was a huge hit and luckily earned critical acclaim. But we weren’t sure our big swing would end that way- but nonetheless we took some major creative risks, and ideas kept building on other ideas.
Our launch made waves and our retail and revenue groups saw huge numbers as a part of that.
The success led to the Rays sponsoring a local pro skateboarder, Jake Ilardi; building a temporary skate park inside Tropicana Field with pros skating the ramps in between innings of an actual game; and building an entire mock skate shop for an epic in-game video- all firsts for an MLB team.
Featured:
Photos by Will Vragovic and Davida Franklin
Flash art illustrated by Sonny Martinez (Sonny James Creative)
Video by Jacob Lovelace
Motion graphic by Carlin Bausch-Sanchez
Social media by Wendy Kirkwood
Project management by Teddi Woodson