When Washington State University Athletics reached out to us recently to design and manufacture a swimming record board for their Pac-12 program, we were excited to get started. The new record board would be housed in Gibb Pool, WSU’s main competitive pool and home of the WSU Women’s swim team.
The main area of focus for our design team was twofold. First it was important to make sure we strictly followed the carefully-crafted brand outlined in Washington State’s Brand Identity Guidelines. These guidelines were created to illustrate specific attributes embodied by Washington State Athletics: Unification, Toughness, Passion, Loyalty and Pride. Our designers have the skills necessary to follow their well-defined brand specifications, which included: color matching the correct Crimson and Gray PMS colors, incorporating the proper fonts including a custom typeface, Cougar Bold, and proper usage of the well-known Cougar head logo.
The second area of focus for the Team Fitz Graphics designers was to ensure that the board was large enough to fill out the wall space, and most importantly, offer an appropriate viewing distance. After all, what good is a record board that cannot be read? Like many other swim programs, the WSU Athletic Department decided to incorporate both team and pool records into their record board.
Based on the facility size, it was decided that 3” tall record lettering would work well, offering readability to approximately 100 feet. With these specs in mind, the record board was designed at an impressive size of 25’ wide by 10’ tall. Multiple color schemes were submitted to WSU with the University colors switched around before the final design was selected.
Additional considerations for the project included a need for a swimming record board that would last, update easily as future records were broken, and ship out ready to install. Careful consideration goes into the materials and construction of every Team Fitz product, and our natatorium record boards are no different. These boards need to be grand in size and hold up to the heat and humidity that is commonplace in a pool facility. Record panels attach with an industrial-grade Velcro mounting system that holds each panel tightly in place, but allows for a quick and easy update. When a record is broken, simply give us a call and we’ll ship out a replacement record panel that matches the original exactly with the exception of the record printed on it.
Lastly, all Team Fitz products are designed and manufactured to be installed by school maintenance departments. Installation instructions and hardware are included and we are always available to answer questions regarding installation and guide your team through the process.
“Working with Team Fitz Graphics has been fantastic. Our new board is designed so that everyone in our facility can see it clearly, and updating records is as easy as sending an email to their team. Our updates arrive quickly and ready to go up. This new board has greatly streamlined our updating process. We look forward to calling on Team Fitz Graphics to produce many new record updates in the future.” said WSU Athletics Event Coordinator and project lead, Andrew Shumate.
Team Fitz Graphics has had the pleasure of working with many major Universities, high schools and youth teams. We would love the opportunity to speak with you regarding any project you are considering including swim record boards, large-format wall graphics and locker room signage. Reach out to us today.
Go Cougs!