In the spring of 2014 I was working as a production/sketch artist (thats what we called it) at what was then known as Britten Studios. The company has since changed its name to Britten, Inc. and prior to Studios it was known as Britten Media. I say all this to give credit where credit is due, and also to make sure people who were/are familiar with the old brand understand the new one.

In April I had been handed a project by the man himself Paul Britten, who is the founder and president of the company, as well as the Don Draper of the organization. This would only be the second project of this nature for me, and it was far larger requiring the coordination of a lot of people and assets.

The Miami Dolphins wanted a facelift for their sanctioned tailgate experience for the 2014-2015 NFL season and we were looking to win the work to get our foot into the NFL market. Hence, one morning while minding my own business a large manilla folder is dropped in my lap by Paul with a list of assets and a whole bunch of information. He told me to "...figure it out...".

What follows are all the experiential assets I designed or redesigned and what I contributed to the project as basically, senior designer. I coordinated a team of about 10 people between 3 different locations. I sat in on all the conference calls, gathered all the needs and information I could with Sales, organized that info and put it on a timeline and then reached out to people as needed to make sure that the work got done. Every morning I would check in with the team to see how everyone was doing and redistribute the load in necessary. It was important to be flexible in order to get everything done. To date, it is probably the most satisfying project I had the chance to be involved in, and also one of the most stressful!

I started with research which lead to a visual theme:


I then used that so all the elements had a uniform look. Let me be clear that at this point, we had no idea if the dolphins would be supplying their own artwork or not. Eventually when this went to production the Dolphins sent all their own original art, however the work my team and I did certainly sold the job!

There were more assets for the tailgate created than what I myself contributed including Florida's largest foosball table, but I am only showing the ones that I created myself and were included in the final pitch. Most of the work that was designed and produced was centered around large format 2D print, and a whole lot of truss structures. The company has since expanded its capabilities to be able to do almost anything.

Disclaimer: I only created the assets pictured. The deck that was presented to the client was styled by a marketing team that we were putting in place at the same time all of this was happening. We had also purchased another company with some talented 3D artists who handled some of the other elements and did some rendering to bring life to the design work. I was very relieved and happy to let Marketing polish the final deck and then do the pitch (I was present for the pitch of course)! I created or designed the ideas for Paul Britten, Britten, Inc. and the Miami Dolphins in 2014. I still work at Britten, Inc. today though in IT (which is a post for another time).

I remember sponsorship opportunities were very important to the Dolphin as well as all the pieces being mobile and storable because the stadium was shared with Miami University. Eventually the work was purchased and produced. I think it took a large portion of the summer to get it all done. There were a lot of last minute add ons. I remember the Dolphins sent a "grip strength" game like you'd see at a carnival or something, and I had to design a set of skins for it to cover up whatever it had been used for before hand. I remember being in the warehouse where all of this was being produced applying the decals to the game myself!

Definitely a wild experience. Photos do exist of the actual stuff that season that was produced and used, but I have no idea where they are. If i ever find them, then I will update with a post or add them to this post.