The Brief
Kick Academy is a community-focused soccer academy providing fun and accessible coaching to children aged 7 to 12 in Geelong and the Surf Coast. The school is not a competitive space—it is designed to represent the history of street soccer and upholds the importance of play.
The challenge was to take an empty warehouse in a semi-industrial area and transform it into a branded experience celebrating soccer culture and the power of play. Ultimately, it would become a space for birthday parties, events and competitive street futsal leagues.
Ruck was engaged to help create a comprehensive brand strategy and brand identity, as well as venue environmental design, merchandise and website. The brand would need to be aspirational for kids, not something that spoke down to them, but had cultural cut-through and street appeal. Based in the Geelong suburb of Newtown, this ambitious project was the first of its kind in regional Victoria.
.
The Solution
Ruck started the design process by developing a brand strategy using our human-centric brand framework. This led us to the creation of a brand identity that embraces simplicity and brings a sense of street appeal. The strong wordmark logo utilises a fresh typography with a natural arc that mimics the flow of a soccer ball in flight. Added to the pack was custom hand drawn iconography that could be used as wayfinding, decorative elements or additional manipulations of images. The monochromatic brand colour palette was disrupted with a blast of yellow.
We then turned our attention to the blank interior of a new warehouse that would ultimately house the indoor soccer court and event facility. This resulted in backlit LED signage, an all-black astro turf soccer pitch, and almost half a kilometre in wall wrappings. Ruck also designed the range of merchandise, from players kits to a street ready range of hoodies, beanies and tees. The final part of the project involved a custom Squarespace website for Kick Academy featuring party booking and membership payment functionality, designed and developed by Ruck.
The Kick Academy brand has since launched their U7s program, Kick JNR, with Ruck's support spanning from branding and strategy right through to content, merch, and web UX/UI design. We wanted to create something that fit within the KA brand system yet had a distinctive youthful spin, hence the addition of the colour blue and Mario Kart-esque typeface. Ruck strategists also established the Kick JNR patch system, written in alignment with the Australian Sports Commission Literacy Framework.
Services
