Beyond Sport
Brand and UX design to protect the mental health of High School athletes by broadening their identities past sport.
Process
The Problem
Many high school student-athletes tie their identity to athletics, shaped by early passion and external recognition. Balancing this with schooling, injuries, performance pressures, or personal disruptions can lead to mental health challenges and a strained sense of self.
The Solution
For this project, I worked with another designer who shared a similar high performance athletics background. We understood the problem space deeply as we had lived through it ourselves.
Key Finding: Mentorship was materially important to broadening identity, leading to more resilient mental health and better performance.
Collaborating with my partner, we developed a brand around creating mentorship relationships between professional and high school athletes. My focus centered on the visual identity, adding motion, and designing the website that would connect mentors and mentees.
By embracing mentorship as a means to support and guide high school athletes through self-exploration and identity formation, this project equips them with the tools to intentionally shape meaningful personal and professional paths beyond the field.
Visual Identity from Scratch
The logo system embodies resilience and growth, drawing on the established visual language of sports. Bold typography communicates strength and determination, while the dynamic split emphasizes life beyond athletics, highlighting the brand’s mission to empower athletes to expand their identities in all dimensions.
Logo in Motion
Highlighting the brand’s connection to diverse sports, the logo reflects its core values of versatility and inclusivity by cycling through various athletic disciplines. This dynamic approach unites all sporting identities under a shared mission: fostering growth beyond the game.
Brand in Context
The brand was built around being seen in contexts outside of sport, which is reflected in the products it appears on. Rather than athletic gear, these items serve as conversation starters, encouraging athletes to embrace and showcase their multifaceted identities beyond sports. Each product reinforces the brand’s mission of helping athletes see themselves as more than their sport—as dynamic, whole individuals.
Beyond Sport Mentorship
This portal creates a dedicated space to connect high school athletes with mentors. It serves as a centralized hub of resources, where mentees can explore curated playbooks, seek guidance from experienced mentors, and access tools for self-discovery and personal development. Designed with the athlete’s journey in mind, the portal encourages users to define their purpose, balance their identities, and take actionable steps toward building a meaningful life outside sport.
Full PrototypeReflection
This project held deep personal significance for me. When I was a high school athlete, I struggled to define my identity beyond the sport I devoted myself to. A season-ending injury during my junior year forced me to confront this challenge head-on, leaving me to reexamine who I was outside of athletics. At that point I had already been competing for nine years. The experience was both isolating and transformative.
It’s often said that we should design the products we wish we had, and this project embodies that philosophy. Creating something that could have guided my younger self through those struggles made this work particularly meaningful.