Our latest website design project was undertaken for a sporting goods site, Sports Direct Link. This website lists reviews and previews of the latest sports equipment such as running shoes and basketball trainers. They wanted to divide the numerous posts, mostly reviews of shoes, not only by the sports they are made for but also by the brand they are made by. We utilized a drop-down menu to get all these options in on the landing page, adding it to a customized WordPress news theme.
Reviews of recently released products are featured in an image slider directly beneath the banner, with feeds for the other main categories located in rows and columns beneath this. The social media links are all located on the right-hand column of every page. The grey buttons at the top feature the client’s most important social channels such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+, beneath this there are more links to the same channels and others, including YouTube and Vimeo.
There is a rating system installed for all the product reviews. This allows the admin to review each product with a mark out of 5 stars and also allows users to submit their own ratings. The author’s rating, the average rating and the user’s rating are all displayed on the review post page, positioned above the review itself. Thumbnails for the reviews also show the rating, allowing the user to easily locate top-rated products. There is even a button in the navigation bar which leads the user to the 10 top-rated posts, the same posts can also be accessed via feeds at the top right and bottom of each page.
When it came to logo design, the client was clear they wanted a shoe-based logo. Initial designs did not sufficiently convey the sporting aspect of the brand but the client finally settled on the trainer-sole design shown below. They wanted to maintain the orange and black color scheme used throughout the site, so we sent over these variations for them to choose from. They went with the final design shown below. A simple and bold logo that clearly communicates the nature and theme of the website while complimenting the overall website design. The text was removed from the logo for use on social media channels and as a favicon, making it an instantly recognizable visual brand identity that is not dependent on the associated text for identification.
