Tapout: Superstar Fitness
Concept / Brand / Digital / UI
About
Growing up, I was a big fan of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) professional wrestling. The wrestlers on WWE were my initial inspiration to pursue fitness. I believe one of the greatest strengths of a “WWE superstar” is their ability to serve as a role model for their fanbase, the “WWE Universe”. I decided to conceptualize a web-based platform that would permit WWE athletes to provide guidance to their fanbase on how to achieve a higher level of fitness.
Objective
The main objective of the proposed “concept app” is to provide WWE Superstars with a platform, Superstar Fitness, that allows them to share information about their individual fitness lifestyle and habits. This expansion of the WWE web platform would only be realistic if it presented a form of profit to the WWE. As such, a secondary objective of this project is to promote the WWE’s new fitness clothing line, “Tapout™”.
User Research
To begin, I interviewed WWE fans at live wrestling events, and categorized the information into three user personae. In particular, fans at live wrestling events who were interested in improving their fitness regimens fell into three main categories: young male fans, young female fans, and middle age male fans. These three distinct fan populations highlighted the need for a platform that could be adapted to variety of WWE superstars as well as fitness routines. The Superstar Fitness platform should also provide an “inside look” into the fitness lifestyle of the WWE superstars.
Design Process
I decided to integrate the Superstar Fitness platform into the Tapout™ website, as this would help to promote the brand and better target users who are interested in fitness. I made sure to keep brand identity on the forefront of the design process, so that it would not disrupt the brand image of WWE or Tapout™. To adapt the Superstar Fitness platform to a variety of superstars and workouts, I designed a structure that begins with a custom home page. The homepage features four “superstars of the month”, from which the user can navigate to the superstar of their choosing. Users will also be able to view superstars who were featured in previous months.
Final Mock Ups
My concept for the Superstar Fitness platform builds upon the Tapout™ brand image. The design is fairly minimalist and modular, allowing it to be utilized on both desktop and mobile devices. Superstar Fitness allows any fan to see their favorite superstar’s workout, and encourages them to follow their lead on a day-by-day basis for a month. Within each form of media, superstars are featured wearing Tapout™ gear, promoting the brand throughout the month that they appear on the platform.
Reflection
This concept design was a useful exercise in brand expansion as well as user-centric design. The WWE's extremely well-established brand image created some difficulties when attempting to come up with a novel and new expansion. It was also difficult developing a design that can be customized for different sectors of WWE’s expansive audience.
