I created a cohesive campaign for the greatest skate contest of all time, including a program booklet, poster, mobile app and Augmented Reality concept.
The Glory Challenge is a skateboarding contest thrown by DIME MTl, a skate company that also makes skate videos and clothes. It's the anti-contest: instead of Monster-Energy-sponsored mega-pros taking solo runs that are highly analyzed for precise scores, everybody skates in big jam sessions, and the events are silly and chaotic, kind of like a skateboarding American Gladiators.
Brand Statement
DIME’S MISSION IS TO BRING CREATIVITY AND fun back into skateboarding, to be an outlet for creative ideas through the medium of skateboarding, and to bring pure, non-corporate skateboard culture to the community.
Target Audience
Dime serves an audience that ranges from teen skaters—enamored with mid-90's nostalgia, wearing ultra-baggy pants and filming each other with decades-old camcorders—to 30+ year old skaters that work in creative industries. Dime's audience is into a subset of brands like Polar, Bronze 56k and GX1000 that offer a more raw, purist aesthetic and diy ethic.
Challenge
after the pandemic, Dime needed to come out swinging with an impactful campaign for their first glory challenge contest in 3 years. The contest format is unique and needed to be communicated to those unfamiliar with it, but at the same time it was crucial for the campaign to have a familiar feel to the contest's cult following within the skateboarding community. There are existing visual motifs consistent in every iteration of the contest: the "bryans" (anonymous workers dressed in construction gear, collectively named after the designer of the course, who set up and move/extend the obstacles during the contest), the gaudy "speed shades" worn by the audience and competitors in the spirit of tongue-in-cheek excess, the volcano, and the stadium setting. These motifs needed to be central in order for the contest to feel right.
Solution: Build & Destroy
The glory challenge's basic DNA can be traced back to gladiators and the original olympics—like pro wrestling, Glory challenge takes the concept of stadium-sized spectacle and makes it fun and extreme for a modern audience. I tapped the iconic volcano that is always included in the glory challenge, usually as the ultimate obstacle, and created a fire motif that represents the explosive nature of the high-octane, high-fun events. I connected this idea to the construction concept through the color orange, speaking to the "bryans" who build the obstacles and the skaters who (figuratively) destroy them like a volcano eruption!
Program Booklet
the program booklet serves as a guide to the contest with the who/what/where/when of the events and parties, but more than that it has the contest's history, energy, and concept baked into it. People may look at their phones for details anyway, but having a physical program in their hand gives them something to look at when they're standing around to keep them stoked on the contest!
one of the first spreads explains how the events work: each obstacle is physically extended or made bigger during the contest, til only one skater can still successfully land a trick on it.
Along with the basic info and image for each event, I made schematic illustrations of how the obstacle would be extended, adding visual interest and reiterating how the obstacles would be extended
Mobile App
I concepted a mobile app where folks can watch contest events live. (but scroll down because it does way more than that.)
Jumbotron
when attendees with the app enter the geo-fence of the contest, they have access to the "smash button"—the more times people in the crowd hit the smash button, the higher the volcano-meter on the jumbo-tron goes!
The crowd's energy and collective stoke level is essential to the Glory Challenge, and making that energy tangible on a huge screen gives the crowd visible agency, making people even more engaged.
Augmented Reality Campaign
the App also contains an AR filter. DIY skate spots in the shape of volcanos will be built in Montreal prior to the contest. When viewed through the app, they appear to erupt! This gamifies the experience of exploring the city through a skaters lens—there could be a reward for those who check off every spot!
