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Be Inspired - Sport England

Be Inspired was set up to help deliver the promise that after London won the bid to host the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, a decade of world-class sport on our doorstep would follow.

Whether you’re looking to Play, Watch or Volunteer, Be Inspired is there to help you get involved with exclusive competitions, discounts, offers and opportunities.

Sigma won the chance to work with Sport England to create the Be Inspired website in the summer of 2014. It was the first incarnation of the website and neither a confirmed sitemap or an established content approach had been agreed by the time the creative was due to get under way. This meant a less rigid approach to navigation, horizontal top nav wasn’t an option, and a conscious leaning on engaging current photography as the client had a full editorial account with Getty.

Background imagery was created using various deconstructed elements from the Union Jack flag, interlocking, overlapping and interacting with one another as the user navigates the site. Each of the main parent sections had bespoke background designs created but some compromise was needed when it came to implementation to bring the project in on budget.

The Section page designs pull out sibling pages featuring video content in a highlighted thumbnail reel. Bold involving headers feature throughout the site to promote browsing. At content page level informal thumbnails draw the user in to experience more of the inspirational photography. A bespoke sharing mechanism ensures maximum social exposure. Customisable related content, following the sites Play, Watch or Volunteer categorisation, promotes sideways browsing to the user.

The home page itself is on it’s third main iteration as the sites position matures. The current layout features the brands flagship film prominently and has more of top level featured content approach, moving from an initial three story, high real estate per story approach, to a more thumbnail driven direction featuring nearly 20 individual content pages.

Design approach for the project followed the full scamp to artworked visual process I’ve introduced at Sigma. With this process the first iteration is produced in low fidelity marker visuals, to help the client focus on overall layout and direction, before firing up Photoshop for the comprehensive detailed visuals. The benefit being that risk is minimised, in terms of amend time, by increasing the accuracy of the visuals with each iteration. This is especially fitting where the layout of an interface is expected to change significantly or where there is no existing site currently to build from.

This was the first project of Sigma’s relationship with Sport England which has since grown into a key account for us. Sigma has since secured stand alone brand work for Be Inspired, multi platform social media campaigns as well as multiple on-going web projects.