
Maccabi USA x Maccabi Media
Branding Project
Maccabi USA is the United States delegation competing in the 21st Maccabiah Games in Israel this July. The games feature talented Jewish athletes from around the world competing in several athletic events.
​
For the first time in history, Maccabi USA will have a broadcast crew covering live streams of athletic events; a group called Maccabi Media.
​
For this project, I helped design various elements to be used during broadcasts as well as social media posts.
My goal was to preserve the rich tradition of Maccabi USA while also providing a fresh, clean, USA-themed look for broadcasts

The Logo
An Updated, Sporty Look
Using the previously made Maccabi USA star (at the top of the logo), I created a new logo for Maccabi media.
​
The two different shades of blue add a little bit of depth to the logo. The boxy letters are meant to convey that this company covers sports, while the media script font adds a fun touch to a logo for a company that is friendly and full of energy!
The logo was printed on materials used by the Maccabi Media team!


The Broadcasts
Designing Graphics for Broadcasts
My prior place of work, Play by Play Productions, partnered with Maccabi USA and Maccabi Media. PBP would help produce a series of live-streams for Maccabi USA events, complete with commentators, sideline reporters, camera operators, etc.
I designed a graphic for social media (pictured left) signaling this momentous partnership for the company. I quickly became the sole person in charge of creating graphics for broadcasts.
The First Impression
Designing the Thumbnail
The first graphic I designed was the thumbnail for the live-streams. Because the thumbnail is the first thing viewers see before a stream starts, I consider it the most important graphic.
​
It lets viewers know essential information like:
​
Countries participating
Sport being played
Location of the matchup
Date of the game

The Graphics Package
The next step was to create of series of graphics that would appear on the screen during broadcasts.
​
While building these graphics in Adobe Photoshop, I had a few key goals:
​
Keep Maccabi branding strong. You'll notice all graphics contain the same shade of blue and red (lighter shades of both that I selected), identical typography (Komu font) as well as other themed items like blue stars and red stripes.
Create .PSD files that are easily editable. Because I am the designer and not a part of the day-to-day broadcast crew, I needed to make these graphics simple enough to be quickly edited as new tournament matchups arose. This required exceptional organization of photoshop files, as well as video tutorials I released to crews.
Make Graphics Informative. Because these will be shown on broadcasts, I need to make sure the potential content filling these graphics adds value to the broadcasts instead of being a distraction.
​
Check out some of the graphics below!
Note that they all appear separately one at a time on screen, never as a collage shown below.

The Sponsors
Some of my graphics were utilized for advertising. You'll notice above that the 'Player to Watch' graphic is sponsored by Seventy Six Capital.
​
I also designed lower thirds to appear on screen during timeouts to give advertisers screen-time.

The Online Presence
Designing for Social Media
The last step in this process was the assist in creating content for social media. The most utilized piece of content I made was a roster announcement template.
Student interns would edit this document with the management and players on each Maccabi USA team, and those .PNGs were posted all over social media for May and June!
​
It felt amazing creating something that symbolized such an important honor in someone's life.

Takeaways
This project was incredibly rewarding. Designing for such an important worldwide event was truly an honor.
​
Career-wise, this project really symbolized my transition from a career in communications to a career in visual design.
President of Play by Play Productions Simon Rosenwasser and the whole Maccabi USA gave me a ton of space to explore my creativity in this project, and I'm forever grateful for that.