Ep. 146 – The Art of the Pivot: The Atlanta Cup's New Direction

Don (00:00) didn't see this coming. Do know what mean in terms of curve ball, right? So, or just a hard, hard left, you know, on the freeway, right? So. Rob (00:08) Sometimes you get a little bit of a sense when it's my gosh. Is the project really? Yes, it's real. OK, great. We have a week. Wow, first round all approved live like you know something. There's something something's coming something coming. This is two yeah. Don (00:12) I think I know what you're gonna say. Yeah, it's almost like hmm, this is too easy. Like what's going on Alright, we're back Rob. Do it live. Nobody even do you think anybody listening to this even understands that reference to live? And it's not actually do it. It's F it. We'll do it live. Isn't that what he said? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we'll do it live. ⁓ We're doing it live with episode 146. Even though by the time someone watches this is probably not live. They're probably watching it recorded. So alright, Rob, a lot has happened. Rob (00:50) Do it live. Do it live. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, we'll do it live. That's right. Don (01:19) since episode 145. Rob (01:21) In the world in general, or do you mean with as it relates to this project? Right? Yeah. Don (01:27) Yes, yes, I think I think both is the answer, but nobody wants to hear our thoughts on the world. think for whoever's binging this out here, they'll want to know, you know, what's going on with the Atlanta Cup, right? And our project, and then all that good stuff, right? So. So I think we just I don't know if you want to do a little setup or not, or if we just rip the bandaid and just go all happy to share my screen and then we'll just sort of take a look. Rob (01:40) What in the world? What in the world is going on? Well, let's do that. Let's do the setup before we show the before we show the work. All right. So so backing up for those just tuning in, we were given this project, right? The Atlanta Cup, the tennis ⁓ tennis event that's coming to exhibition slash tournament that's coming to Atlanta in December, December 5th and 6th, I believe. So we were handed the project ⁓ literally, I think a month has it been a month? Maybe it was a month ago. I think it's been a month. Don (01:54) Okay. All right. Hit me, Goose. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I don't even think it's been a month, dude. Yeah. Rob (02:18) with the task of developing all of the identity ground up, getting a site live, selling tickets, all the things, ⁓ which we effectively did in about a week and a half's time, I would say, the first iteration. ⁓ A lot has happened since then, namely, for those that tuned in and saw the approved ⁓ logo and all the approved design work, we have done a complete 180. Don (02:32) Yeah. ⁓ Yep. Rob (02:46) ⁓ And here's why, ⁓ because the real world happens and life happens, right? So in this instance, I feel like we rushed and rushed and rushed, got everything approved, did a great job. Client was super happy. Everything was great. Everybody's super pleased. It went live. Everything was great. ⁓ The client then went to the US Open and managed to chat with a bunch of his friends and family and who knows how many people he surveyed. ⁓ Don (02:57) Yeah, everybody's super happy. Mm-hmm. player agents, all sorts of Rob (03:15) Yeah, yeah, talent agents, the athlete agents, all of the things. And I think got a little frightened. I think the feedback was, oh my gosh, this is super creative and kind of breaking the mold a little bit. We're scared, we're a little scared. Dial it back, dial it back. doesn't look like traditional tennis. doesn't look like, which again was the whole point of what we were trying to do, which is something new, non-traditional, all the things. So, and this happens all the time. Don (03:40) Yeah, yeah, I think you nailed it. I think the key piece of information there is it doesn't look like what I expected it to look like. So that therein lies a little trepidation of you know, if it truly is creative, it should be a little bit inherently scary, right? Because it doesn't look like everybody else, right? Well, let's say, hey, who wants to be the icebreaker? You know what I mean? And break the mold, right? ⁓ Rob (03:48) Correct. Right. Yeah, and I think it was scary and I think also too, and this happens a lot is, and we always tell clients, hey, know, take the work home, live with it for a couple of days, but be sure not to show too many people because you get everything watered down by committee. When you have creative, right? And it goes without saying, it's all subjective, right? So what happens is you get that many people giving feedback and ultimately if you take a lot of that feedback, things just get watered down. Don (04:16) Yeah, yeah. Yeah, designed by committing. Rob (04:33) down and watered down and they morph and they morph. So that's sort of what happened. Again, I think the pace of the project attributed to that, think, you know, maybe getting too many opinions attributed to it and a little bit of just scared to do something new. That said, we turned on a dime and sort of adjusted the identity. And by adjusted, I mean, totally transformed it. And... ⁓ Don (04:45) Yeah, sure. Yeah, there's a little inkling of what it used to be kind of there, but yeah. Yeah. Rob (05:01) There is, and we can talk a little bit about what didn't die, ⁓ without further ado, I suppose, let's show the fine folks where we landed with this. Don (05:09) Yeah, here, let me just jump. Alright, there we go. There we go. There we go. Alright, so ⁓ yeah, so when last we left off, it was all about the fiery peach, right? ⁓ Leaning into the aggressive, the aggressiveness, the fiery peach, all that stuff. Fiery peaches out man. We are ⁓ little red, white and blue with a little bit of that tennis tennis ball color in there, right? Is it tennis ball green or is it tennis ball yellow? I will let you decide, but there actually is a PMS color for Rob (05:13) And tickets are being sold. Yeah, here we go. Don (05:40) tennis balls, so we just pulled that. ⁓ It's kind of a little bit of an accent color, which is interesting. So, and again, for those following along, think the part of the logo kind of maintained, right? You know what I mean? In the shield there, But instead of it being kind of on its own, it's now enclosed ⁓ inside a circle, right? It's a little bit more ⁓ badge-like, a little bit more emblem-like. It's got a little bit of a tagline in there, you know? But you're still able to... Use the date right at the 2025 in there, things like that, right? But so it still has a little bit of the essence of what it the origination of the mark, I think, but it's just kind of ⁓ chilled out a little bit, right? It's technical term chilled out. ⁓ The Atlanta Cup, right? That sort of typography remained consistent as well, right? ⁓ So yeah, primary logo and then sort of secondary logos and how it works. You know, either on the left hand side there, you know, contained within kind of the ring or do you have it float things like that, right? Rob (06:36) Yeah, Don (06:37) So it's still. Rob (06:38) it's got a lot going on. I mean, I'm not gonna lie. got, there's a lot going on here. Don (06:41) Yeah, it's it's got a little bit of the shields within the circle. And it's got a little bit of kind of the handles right of a cup. Sort of on the side, even though, as of this recording, I'm still not 100 % sure what the trophy looks like. I mean, it has to be a cop, you know, is basically what I call them. It's got to be a cop. So and then, you know, wanted to lean into some traditional sort of color schemes, which I thought was interesting. Rob (06:48) It's a cup, yeah. Has to be a cup, sure. Don (07:08) ⁓ We've got the dark Navy, the blue, the red, obviously the tennis sort of the tennis ball color there over on the right. And then we do have kind of a tertiary color of ⁓ green, kind of a darker green, ⁓ you know, not to grass, not to painted courts, things like that. We don't use the green as much, but it is in the color palette thus far, right? ⁓ There's a breakdown on all the colors and things like that. So yes, for those following at home, the tennis ball PMS is a 389. Rob (07:35) Is that a green or a yellow dot? Don (07:37) ⁓ I mean, I think tennis balls are yellow. You think tennis balls are green, correct? Rob (07:43) I think they're green. But it might just be because I have an aversion to yellow, just in general. But it's green to me. Don (07:44) Yeah. Yeah, yeah, from there and that's and that's pretty much and that's the end. That's the end. That's the end of the dock pretty much. Yeah, again to your point, it's kind of moving at the speed of business, right? ⁓ So a lot of very, very quick sort of rapid fire. ⁓ But you know we had already designed the website. I mean, Ticketmaster had the ticket graphics, know, like everybody had already fiery peaches already out in the world, right? So then ⁓ it's all about. Rob (07:53) That's it. Don (08:17) ⁓ you know, that revolving door of sort of replacing and replenishing and hey, brands change their minds all the time. Clients change their minds all the time. I mean, this isn't ⁓ a fiasco. This is just kind of the way it works sometimes. You know what I mean? So you put some things out in the world and then eventually those things will die off as the new pass of everything kind of comes to, you know, comes to light, right? So, yeah, there you go. You're pulling up the site right now. Rob (08:45) Yeah, there you go. You can see the site. Again, it's just a pretty super, super simple site. Quick little form field and then obviously a link off to buy tickets and. Don (08:55) Yeah, I think we had a little bit of animation at some point in there. Oh yeah, there you go. There you go. Rob (08:57) There's a little bit of animation if we do a little refresh. There you go. Kind of thing sort of bounce into place. So again, super simple. And this will grow over time, right? Once we get more information. Because again, this thing is in such the infant stages that we don't really know the format yet. We don't really know who's playing when the schedules, all that stuff is being developed right Don (09:03) Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, the format of the tournament isn't really decided yet as of our recording. ⁓ I believe merch, you know, we're going to start working on merch and that type of stuff, right? So that'll be added just more event information and more event details. I think will be added to the site. I mean, you know, it doesn't need to be a giant robust site. I mean, nobody's going in there to log into their Atlanta Cup account, for example. I mean, everything's ticket wise, everything through Ticketmaster. So. Rob (09:38) No. Don (09:42) But hey man, rockin' and rollin' is fast as seemingly possible. It's an interesting one to follow along and definitely ⁓ didn't see this one coming. Do know what mean in terms of curve ball, right? So, or just a hard, hard left, you know, on the freeway, right? So. Rob (09:56) Sometimes you get a little bit of a sense when it's my gosh. Is the project really? Yes, it's real. OK, great. We have a week. Wow, first round all approved live like you know something. There's something something's coming something coming. This is two yeah. Don (10:01) I think I know what you're gonna say. Yeah, it's almost like hmm, this is too easy. Like what's going on now again? We did rock out. think what four different original ideas right at the beginning of this. So it wasn't like hey, here's your logo done approved sent the door. I mean we still did a lot. You know a lot of backstory a lot of back work. You know, auditing obviously the the four majors things like that right? ⁓ But I think maybe the pressure of timing you know in you know. Rob (10:20) Yeah, absolutely. Don (10:39) Created the decision and then you know on second reflection was like, maybe we should maybe we should chill a little bit You know what I mean? That type of thing. So it's all good, man. I all is good I mean, you know Rob (10:46) Yeah. Well, listen, here's the thing, know, if we can, you know, chest beat a little bit, we were able to launch the project super, super quick, right? And get a first approval, which is great. And then, ⁓ they came back with a super hard pivot and, okay, great, we can accommodate that. And we did. And most importantly, at the end of the day, you know, To us, this is the only part of the project that we work on, right? To the people in charge of it, they've got a lot to do, right? This is just one little piece and part of it. So it's our job to take it off their plate and clients super happy, ⁓ which at the end of the day is the great news, right? So now they can move on and focus on pulling the actual event together ⁓ in due time. Don (11:24) Yeah, everybody's happy. Yeah, yeah. I think I think we're doing a digital board rotation around town. mean, there's other I mean, the list of elements will still be working on is is ⁓ to a certain extent almost still undetermined, right? I mean, because ⁓ we haven't even done any in store in store in event signage or any of that type of stuff yet. I'm sure that'll come I mean, as the needs, you know, email blasts with Alta and USTA and you know, things are still going to keep occurring. All right, but it's just got to check them off as they come in. Rob (11:59) Yeah. Don (12:01) So, but yeah, I think that to your point, like pride, internal pride is an important factor in this as well. And we do want everybody to be happy. do. mean, obviously we have our own peculiarities and we're on the design side of life. We want everything to be, you know, edgy and wacky and different and, you know, ⁓ mold breaking and things like that. ⁓ what, what appropriate, I mean, not for every single project, you know, things like that, but Rob (12:09) Absolutely. Don (12:24) ⁓ But hey, think internal pride is an important aspect and definitely is the hey if you guys are happy We're happy all good in the world, you know, no hard feelings. Not like let's let you know Let's do what's best for everyone involved, right? Rob (12:36) And next episode, we'll show you a completely different direction after they change their minds again. And that's going to be amazing. And we're here for it. Don (12:41) Yeah, yeah, let's, let's hope not. Let's hope not because the clock it is a ticking to December 6. You know what I mean? So yeah, it's it's it's been an interesting one to say the least. It's been fun. Actually, I don't know how you feel about it. It's been fun to kind of think about the project in week increments to have this conversation in a strange way, you know, because we want to actually you know, a lot of times, you know, we have, you know, Rob (12:47) That's right. That's right. Yeah, absolutely. Don (13:07) five, seven, 10 days to work on something, you do a checkpoint and different clients work at different speeds, right? We always joke when we're working with Georgia Pacific, it's like turning a battleship, right? I mean, it just takes forever to get, you know, things like that. And we have other clients that are startups or smaller clients that are a little bit more nimble and they'll get back to you in a day or two, you know, that type of thing, right? ⁓ So we always just kind of move at the speed our clients allow us to move at or based on what their peculiarities are and their deadlines and things. And it's been interesting to sort of segment this ⁓ Manic project in sort of weak chunks to have the conversations, which has been interesting, so. Yeah. Rob (13:41) Yeah, but to actually stop and reflect on it, which you don't, we don't really do all that often. Don (13:47) Yeah, yeah, yeah, always on to the next. It was on the next fun thing. Yeah, all three of them. It's gonna be awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shout out to Kathy. She's probably watching this right now. So, all right. Well, I'm all talked out on TAC. Do we have anything else? No? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. ⁓ All right, well, everybody can find us, like and subscribe, all the good things, Rob (13:51) And to bring our fans along for the ride, really. All three, Rachel. Yeah, I mean, that's that's kind of it, I think for today, right? like and subscribe, all the things. Go to the atlanticup.com. If you're in Atlanta, buy tickets. It's gonna be a great event. We think it's gonna be a great event. We'll let you know when we have more details. We'll be there for sure. Are you playing? I'd like to play. Maybe we do Don versus Rob in an exhibition match. Don (14:15) know, buy yourself some ticks, man. Yes, we'll, we'll be there, you know, ⁓ it's gonna be exciting. ⁓ I think we need a skills challenge and it needs to be, there's a ball boy aspect to it. You know what I mean? Like sort of perched on the side, you know? Rob (14:35) you We'll have our kids, we'll bring all our kids out and they can, we can. Don (14:42) I mean, that's a recipe for a torn ACL or a pop the killies or something like that, you know, zero to five miles an hour too quickly. I'm gonna something bad is gonna happen. Yeah, no, no one needs to see that no one's there to as much as gas South arena is going to be full. I don't think they want to see us. So Rob (14:45) you No one wants to watch that. No, probably, but we're not the big draw. All right, well hey, go check us out on the socials and of course at MockTheAgency.com. We are not hard to find and we will hopefully speak with you for episode 147 ⁓ and we'll let you know how this project wrapped up. All right, bye. Don (15:12) It'll be amazing. All right, thanks everybody.