[Name] · Design
What was the actual tension in this brief?
[PLACEHOLDER] Everyone kept asking for heritage or bold. Nobody asked for both until MLSJ did.
Case Study 04
Partner
Major League Show Jumping
Category
Show jumping · CSI5*
Engagement
2025–Present
Scope
- Fan platform
- Website
- App
- Graphic design
Who built it
Four disciplines. One question each.
[Name] · Product
What was the thing you refused to over-simplify?
[PLACEHOLDER] The collectible had to mean something after the season ended, not just during it.
[Name] · Frontend
What broke first when you tried to make live data feel instant?
[PLACEHOLDER] Standings that update mid-round look easy until a few thousand people are refreshing at once.
[Name] · Backend
What's the mechanic doing that a login screen couldn't?
[PLACEHOLDER] A username doesn't remember your first event. The card does.
Where it stood
MLSJ had built a real league. It hadn't decided what that league looked like yet.
Since 2021, MLSJ built a real CSI5* circuit — eight to ten events, $12M in prize money, bigger events chosen over more of them. What hadn't caught up was everything fans and sponsors actually see: a site and app built strictly for people who already knew the sport, in the same saturated blue worn by every other major series. Correct on paper. Invisible next to competitors wearing the same color.
The part everyone skips
The obvious fix was to pick a side. Heritage, or disruptor. MLSJ needed to be both at once.
Lean into the sport's existing codes and the brand disappears into a category of old money and longer histories. Lean all the way modern and it risks losing the luxury credibility sponsors expect — tacky instead of premium. MLSJ was direct about which it wanted: a fearless innovator, edgy, elegantly bold — not conventional, bland, a dull traditionalist. That's not a color brief. That's asking one brand to be elite and inclusive, for an audience running from a rider's grandmother to her seven-year-old grandkid at the rail.
The idea we brought
Stop choosing between elite and inclusive. Build a brand confident enough to hold both.
Every other series in the sport picked a lane — heritage or spectacle, blue or nothing. MLSJ, pulling $12M in prize money and premier-caliber riders, didn't need to: it needed an identity elegant enough for the sponsors it has, bold enough for the fans it doesn't have yet — and confident enough to finally monetize, connect, and grow because of it, not despite it.
What we built
Three things, brought level with each other.
01 · Brand + site/app
A look and a live feed that finally match "premier"
Off the industry's default blue, without losing the luxury cues sponsors expect — paired with a live data feed fast enough for a rail-side crowd that spans a seven-year-old and their grandmother.
02 · Collectible rosette cards
One rosette, every event, never the same twice
Rosettes already mean pride, place, and memory in this sport. Each competition gets its own collectible card designed as a custom rosette — unique to its location in color, pattern, and detail.
03 · Profile card
Initials at the center, framed like a crest
A rider, staff, or fan's initials at the center, framed by jump poles or laurels — a badge-like mark of identity pulled from classic equestrian crests and monograms.
01/03
The mechanic
Most collectibles are souvenirs. This one was built to become a record.
01 · Sign up
The profile card is why a fan makes an account at all.
A personalized mark of identity from the first visit, not a username.
02 · Collect
The rosettes give the card somewhere to go.
Custom to its location every time, so three events followed means three genuinely different rosettes, not the same one three times.
03 · Compound
Which is why a season becomes a record, not just a login.
Competed, supported, or followed from afar — the collection becomes a personal record of the journey, the same way a rosette means more the longer it's hung on the wall.
01/03
The result
Short, once the numbers are in.
MLSJ named three goals at kickoff: monetize better, connect to fans, grow the audience. The monetization number isn't in yet — these are, since launch. Source: MLSJ platform analytics, lifetime-to-date since launch (summer 2025). Exact launch date still pending confirmation, so these read as roughly a first year of totals, not a precise year-over-year comparison.
Mobile · share of visits
36.8%
Of all visits already happening in the app, not the browser — this early, that's fans choosing to carry the league with them, not just clicking a link.
Fans · registered
21.47K
Signed up and made an account, since launch
Visits · lifetime
107.9K
Across web and app, since launch
App · downloads
2.3K
Direct installs — no legacy app carrying any of that number over
Culture, not audience
A league doesn't get to skip earning its fans just because the sport is real.
MLSJ didn't need to convince anyone the sport was worth watching. It needed a brand that made new fans feel like they'd arrived somewhere established, not somewhere still finding its footing. Same throughline as Williams: fandom isn't a feature you bolt on.
Contact
Got a league still explaining itself?
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