Client:
SoulSports
Media:
Graphics
Project:
Graphic & Application Design, Branding and Consultancy
Services:
- Ecommerce
- CMS
- SEO
- Digital Marketing
- Design
Web address:
Description:
SoulSports, based in Brighton, are the UKs leading freesport athlete and event management company. The people behind SoulSports also run Snowboard Club UK, Europe's largest snowboarding web site.
SoulSports had many ideas of what they want to do online, but were uncertain which ideas were the most effective or even possible.
We helped SoulSports develop their ideas and produced a technical specification for a web site incorporating cutting edge social networking, eCommerce, advertising and content aggregation.
As part of this process we produced numerous concept designs and 3 completed graphic designs for the web site.
SoulSports run their own web sites in house, and are passionate about open source technology. The specification and application design we put together for them made use of the best of the open source crop. Technologies such as Linux, PHP, MySql, Symfony, Smarty, Apache, Subversion, rsync and many others featured prominently in the specifications.
The key concepts of the site were to provide an online social space for both amateur and professional athletes who practice extreme sports such as snowboarding and mountain biking. At the same time, venues such as dry slopes and resorts could create online profiles on the web site and users could then link with them. Though out this interlinked system, aggregated content such as performance statistics, weather information, race results, photos and news are pushed and pulled around the web site.
Integrated into the social networking features of the site, an eCommerce system was designed to control premium content for paid members of the site, subscriptions and to sell various items such merchandise and insurance policies.
Further revenue can be generated from an advertising system powered by anonymous, aggregated user data, from the social networking components on the web site.
Throughout the entire process we provided SoulSports with advice and guidance on marketing strategies, usability, hosting, content strategies and supporting their users. We also looked in detail at the process of migrating their existing users and extensive range of content from the Snowboard Club UK web site in to their new web site.
We wish SoulSports every success with their plans for a new web site and hope that they will put them in to action soon. While we hope to be the one's who launch the site, the consultancy we have given SoulSports will enable them to implement their ideas in-house. Either way, we found this to be a very exciting project to work on and some of the more sporty members of the team can't wait until they are able to sign up to the finished site.
