Triumph Esports was a chance to be in at the ground floor and be a part of building something from the ground up. From the beginning, story and authenticity were at the forefront of what we were building. All of our content and decisions around social media were made with the thought of involving our community in our story.
In my position as content director, I oversaw the brand, the merchandise, our content and our community outreach. It was a wonderful chance to bring together everything to create a cohesive team experience.
"She was responsible for setting colors, logos, jersey designs, other merchandise, social media graphics, brand sponsorship pitch decks; the list goes on and on. She collaborated with copywriting, social media managers and freelance designers to bring a robust and inspired vision of an esports team surrounding one thing: togetherness, to life. She understood and took pride in the fact that a brand was not just a mark, but a story. Something one could believe in, and become a lifelong fan of. I cannot emphasize enough, that it wasn't done with the pedestrian, boring, run-of-the-mill attitude prevalent in most creative directors common in the esports scene. " - Will, Triumph Desiginer
Right out of the gate, starting something from the ground up presents a host of challenges. Notably, a lack of resources. We had little to no funding, and were working with what we had in front of us. With no funds, we had no chances to get players in studios for professional footage or photos. Working in gaming, we were working with the same assets that every other team had, which made standing apart from other teams more difficult. Esports doesn't sleep, games happen at all hours of the day and weekend, and we needed to move quick at all times.
One of the biggest things Triumph did to set themselves apart from other teams at our level, was to make merchandise people actually wanted to wear. At a time when most teams of our level were putting out shirts that simply had a logo square on the chest, Triumph chose to mimic the styles and trends we saw in street wear.
We made jerseys that stood out on a stage, and let our players hold their heads high. We made seasonal merchandise releases, with limited runs that sold out on multiple occasions. We were incredibly lucky to not only have a phenomenal community but the chance to make designs that stood out from the run of the mill team.
The biggest problem we faced was absolutely a lack of quality player photography. If you take one look at sports and esports design, putting your players front and center is key for getting people invested in your story. In order to solve this, I illustrated portraits of our players that were used in our designs to announce matches, and communicate scores. This worked wonders for drawing in crowds, and was a key part of what allowed us to grow to a community of over 2.5K fans in our discord, and 50K+ followers across our social media accounts.
