Identity   Website  

The making of the Russian Drag Racing Championship website

Overview
Process


Understanding the task. We need to create a website that would provide information about the championship and present updates during the races. First, looking at the websites of the world’s major motorsport championships.

rdrc site process 01

Deciding to make something more interesting and unusual. The website has to combine an informative approach and a sporty style. Starting to work on the concept, making the first approach.

rdrc site process 02

Art director: Too much decoration. We need something fresh here. Making another neat site isn’t really that exciting.

Thinking some more. Trying to use American comic books as a source of inspiration.

rdrc site process 03

Suggesting to turn the oven into a character that would change in appearance depending on the status of the competition.

rdrc site process 03 1

Art director: You should avoid stylized design: we should create our own style instead of copying somebody else’s. And a cooling down stove looks sad.

Designer: What if we present the information in a simple “magazine” style and make it interesting by adding corporate identity elements?

rdrc site process 04

Art director: That’s better, but the “magazine” has to be more clean. And we need more ideas.

Inviting the senior designer to join the project and continuing to think. The championship will take place in several Russian cities for which it will become a major event, almost a City Day. The senior designer suggests the “stove in the city” idea: a giant stove will race across the country greeted by crowds at cities. The website will “assemble” itself during loading. First, a smile appears on the black screen, there’s intrigue, then—whoah!—the Godzilla stove in a city.

Art director: Yes!

Demonstrating the two concepts to the client.

rdrc site process 05

The client goes with the “stove in the city.” Continuing to work.

While the mock-ups are still being developed, quickly assembling a coming soon teaser page for the future website: the smile appears from the darkness, but the stove can’t be seen yet.

rdrc site process 06

Working on the main page. Considering appearance of various event statuses: a live stream, end of the first day of the competition, end of a stage.

rdrc site process 07

Assembling a text lorem ipsum page with main styles and graphic elements.

rdrc site process 09

Starting to typeset. Working on animation for the main page.

rdrc site process 12

Drawing backgrounds for all the cities that will host the upcoming races.

rdrc site process 13

Starting to work on internal pages.

rdrc site process 10

Now all that’s left is the Pilots section.

rdrc site process 14

Client: We don’t like the layout of the pilot page, the quality of the photograph is quite poor, too. You need to show just one car, the one that the pilot drives now. There should also be some brief statistics and a biography, and the photographs block can go.

Recreating the layout. Taking large-scale photos of pilots in full height and using them as background.

rdrc site process 14 1

Typesetting the rest of the pages, fixing bugs and cleaning up the layouts.

rdrc site process 15
rdrc site process 16

The races are not held year round and the main page shouldn’t be boring in between seasons. Coming up with an idea for a temporary page: the stove undergoing tuning in a hangar. Making a sketch, getting the client’s approval.

rdrc site process 08

Order a design...