Virgin Sport

Year: 2015
Client: Virgin
Agency: AKQA
Field: Health & Fitness
Disciplines: UI Design

About
Virgin Sport launched in 2015 as the Virgin Group’s move into mass-participation sport, led by former New York City Marathon race director Mary Wittenberg. Built on the acquisition of a firm that organised local half marathons and community events, it reimagined races as festivals of running, fitness, food and music, starting with the Hackney Half.

My role
The agency behind the new brand brought me in to turn it into a website for event information, registration and membership. It was a full product design brief, from first sketches and wireframes to the final UI.

Approach
The hexagon is at the heart of the Virgin Sport identity, so I made it a working part of the interface rather than decoration. It turned what could have been plain, functional pages into something playful that encouraged people to get involved.

Encouraging user participation
A key goal of the Events page was to encourage people to complete every segment of an event. Each segment lights up as it is completed, gamifying the experience to keep participants engaged.

Early sketches and wireframes
From initial sketches to detailed wireframes built with the brand assets.

Design development
The Events landing page is the user’s central hub and the most important page on the site. It went through many iterations before we reached the agreed solution.

The grid
The branding team created this grid pattern as part of the new identity. I used it as the page architecture too, so every angle and hexagon in the interface derives from the same core grid.