CASE STUDY: COACHADAM.FUN
LOGO REDESIGN, WITH WEB DESIGN TO FOLLOW
Coach Adam and his brother Domenic owned a thriving sports business that was forced to shut down most of its operations when the pandemic hit. They were able to keep their swimming business open and grow it significantly through the use of masks and a special residential location for their pool.
Their logo was a turtle with each of its panels housing a piece of sports equipment and they wanted a redesign of that… but with some prodding I discovered they were open to seeing other options I came up with.
First Rounds of Concept Presentation
A theme of the conversation was that although their business was capable of operating across so many different sports, they didn’t need to let that be their defining factor. We talked about how ubiquitous Nike’s logo is across all athletics and activities, and how their iconic swoosh contains not one reference to sports equipment.
I wanted to show them how all of the elements together were too much and how it could look if you removed one element at a time. I wanted to show an icon logo as well that would be recognizable and purely Coach Adam’s. I am proud of the thought process surrounding this concept presentation, because it helped Coach Adam have an epiphany…
As we talked about his five year plan (a question that I ask in every logo design and redesign) Coach Adam came to the realization that focusing in on the swim school side of his sports business was the way to go.
We ended up scrapping the CoachAdam.Fun logo altogether in favor of a logo that just belonged to Tiburon Swim Academy.
PROJECT SCOPE OFFICIALLY CHANGED, NEW CONTRACT STARTED
A decision is finally reached, and a visual identity is born!
Like many other brands, Tiburon would have a primary and a secondary logo. It would be versatile and able to be used in multiple locations. It would have three primary colors with Sharktooth font and circling sharks represented in both formats. We added Omnes as the primary font for the website to help add some friendliness and fun to Sharktooth’s sharper more aggressive style.
Continued Partnership
I stayed on to work with Tiburon to design & build their website using Squarespace the entire step of the way, and still do website administration for them.
Over the past year or two, I have taken on more creative projects for them including some essential & last minute graphic design work in Adobe InDesign, a program I had only ever watched videos of but never actually used before. I also collaborate regularly with their social media manager to ensure a cohesive brand appearance across all platforms.
Tiburon Swim Academy has grown significantly since I began working with them. Their website sees 5,000 monthly visitors, they have grown their small team to a staff of 25, and their waitlist has amassed 3500 swimmers. In September, they are slated to open a second location, double their staff, and get 2000 of those swimmers on the waitlist in lessons.
Pictured here… my kids enrolled in their first swim lessons at Tiburon in July 2024.
"Kali is great! She will get you where you want to go. We started with Kali to help our website and logo. With her it was all about the process, for me specifically I have many ideas so she was able to pull out everything I wanted and then she directed me on how to refine my idea to one clear, distinct logo. We love our logo now.
She turned our beginner website into an amazing place for our customers to understand our business and navigate our offerings as well as aesthetically pleasing . We think Kali is great and we try to hire her for as many projects as we can, including website maintenance and consulting on my social media department. I would recomend her service to any small or big business."
Coach Adam, Owner & Founder of Tiburon Swim Academy