ACS Creative Revs Up 13 Year Old Speed Prodigy’s Website
Kaylen Frederick, known as K-Rex, races open wheel, Formula F1600 cars down a straight away, as fast as he can. He’s also only 13, and the youngest open wheel, pro race driver in the United States. Not too shabby for a middle schooler. He dreams big: winning the Indy Car and the Indy 500 among other famous car races. And those big dreams require extreme dedication, natural talent and a responsive racing websites design that lures sponsors so K-Rex can keep training at the sport he loves. His dad rolled into our office and asked us to create an impactful online presence. So we, with our toolbox of expert graphic design skills and slick code, rolled up our sleeves and joined K-Rex’s crew.
Full-throttle on the cool factor.
A lot of clients will come in asking for a cool looking website, and while we often try to get more specific on direction, with K-Rex there was no denying that this website had to look and feel as sleek as the car he drives. So what’s cool? Black with bold yellow type, much like the suit K-Rex wears. We used a combination of white and yellow type the over dark imagery to highlight his name and attributes. We also chose a thick, strong font to further convey the sleek message. Lastly, the hero shot is of K-Rex standing with his arms crossed while staring down the camera. If you read nothing else on the page, you’ll still understand one thing: this kid kicks some you know what. And that’s exactly the message the K-Rex team wants to deliver to potential sponsors. A nice win for us.
Put the wins front and center.
Since the whole purpose of our racing websites design is to position K-Rex as a winner, we created a prominent bold banner above the fold on the homepage where he can announce every achievement. Right below that announcement is a box pointing visitors to his 2016 Campaign and schedule. The Learn More link then leads to a calendar we created using race track graphics that delineate the separate events. We are especially fond of those graphics. And on every page there’s a bold box encouraging folks to subscribe to K-Rex’s news and events updates. We like to think of this website design as one slick, fan-creating machine.
Keeping in touch with those fans.
K-Rex is a little too busy behind the wheel, and his parents are a little too busy being K-Rex’s parents to struggle with updating the site’s content. That’s where our content management system comes into play. We made it super easy for the K-Rex crew to post wins, add events, and automatically email subscribers important updates. Long gone are the days when people had to hire developers to make changes to their website. Content management systems like the one we built allow even the least tech savvy user to quickly make web content changes–almost as fast as K-Rex himself gets down that track.
Who is this kid?
Sure the site looks slick. Sure the wins look impressive. But sponsors and fans will want more juicy details on this racing kid wonder. So we put the question: Who isKaylen Frederick right on the homepage. Then added a link to an about section that explains when he got started racing, lets us know he’s also an awesome skier, and reminds us that K-Rex is still a kid—albeit a very talented one you should keep an eye on.
Getting his brand up to speed.
Of course, we couldn’t very well launch K-Rex’s new cool website design without also ensuring that his logo was up to brand snuff. So we updated his logo to match the look and feel of his website. It turned out pretty rad. Wish we had one when we were in middle school.
Getting to the finish line.
As we mentioned earlier, the point of the new responsive website is to attract and persuade sponsors for K-Rex. Thing is, the website is only the lure. K-Rex’s dad also needed the hook. So we designed a pitch presentation template so he could make his presentations to potential sponsors. Winning races is only half the battle. The other half is creating a professional brand that companies will want to invest in. We may not know a whole lot about open wheel, formula car racing, but in the world of professional branding, we are true champs.