"We are going to discuss the essence of
Notre Dame Football through boxing"
That was our theme for the 2019 Football Recruiting Class.
That's what days of brainstorming boiled down to.
That's what we were going to pursue. FightClub19.
We wanted to be bold with our art direction, so we developed a bold concept. Notre Dame and Notre Dame Football has many ties with boxing. Legendary football coach Knute Rockne first organized boxing at Notre Dame in 1920, known as the Bengal Bouts. The Fighting Irish logo features The Leprechaun with his fists up, who is ready to battle anyone that comes his way. We identified many similar traits between both sports and created artwork that showcased the many different sights and sounds. Green was used as the primary color for this project, as it is identified in our Brand Guidelines as a "spirit color". Using green create sub-branded artwork that was similar, but unique from our gold-on-blue brand presence. It was important to pay respect to the rich history and tradition of Notre Dame and Notre Dame Football, but highlight how current and fresh the Football Program is today. We were able to do this by using different locations around campus in our creative and capture the work in a cinematic, dramatic style. In all, we were able to successfully communicate FightClub19 with art and creative.
Please continue scrolling down to view a collection of artwork created for FightClub19 Art Direction.
We wanted to begin each player feature with the camera panning in to the individual recruit boxing poster. This was important to help emphasize "entering" the player feature. Additional animation was added, including animating the boxing bag to swing back and forth, fog to add depth, and a zoom transition from player front card artwork to video feature.
We wanted to end each player feature with vibrant artwork and animation, so we animated the crowd cheering and added paparazzi light pops and flares.
The individual player video feature below shows how the artwork interacts with the player footage. Each individualized player video feature (we created 23 videos) is around 30 seconds in length. The player-specific voice-overs used in these videos are from our Director of Football Performance Coach, Matt Balis. All player footage was recorded in our stadium locker room, which was ideal for consistent art direction.
This wall mural played a large role with creative and art direction.
TOP: We scanned the covers of over 40 years worth of Notre Dame Football program guides, and created a collage with the scanned images. This collage was used in many of our video features.
BOTTOM: I then recreated the top image in photoshop. I wanted a more refined, dramatic asset to work with, and added additional elements to the final graphic (punching bag, shadows, brick wall, boxing gloves and wooden bench).
Jodain Massad and Cody Baker played significant roles developing this hype video. They were successful with helping execute the theme, style, and messaging when capturing the footage and editing this video. You will see how FightClub19 Art Direction is consistent throughout graphic and video footage below.
ALL ARTWORK WAS CREATED FOR NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL, 2018
CHRIS CHARIZOPOULOS: Creative Director, Lead Designer, Concept Creation & Development
JODAIN MASSAD: Executive Producer, Concept Development
TIM O'CONNOR: Logo Creator, Concept Creation & Development
KEVIN BARRETT: Lead Animation, Concept Development
CODY BAKER: Lead Video Editor, Producer
FRED VILLARRUEL: Concept Development
JEFF MYERS: Lead Photographer
JENNA PISNOY: Designer
LAINIE DAVISON: Mural Creator
VIDEO EDITING/PRODUCTION: Jon Cotton, Brock Raum, Tony Simeone, Zach Dudka, Indi Jackson, Joey Mizutani, Jasmine Curry, Jerrod Stafford, Derek Coleman, Robert Campbell, Noah Peterson, Brian Raab, Nathan Iseminger
