2024 NHL Winter Classic - Seattle Environmental Graphics
Both teams (the Seattle Kraken and the Vegas Golden Knights) are expansion franchises with no real history to draw from, which made the Winter Classic's throwback tradition an interesting creative puzzle. The solution was leaning into bold typographic choices, ornamental detailing, and a classic sports poster approach to color and composition to manufacture a sense of heritage that didn't actually exist yet.
Beyond the creative work, this was also the most complex scope I managed on a single event, juggling sponsor applications, retail hits, a fan zone, and player imagery across a stadium and two hotels simultaneously. As much systems thinking as design thinking.
Street-level signage sets the tone before anyone steps inside, and the light pole banners running along the stadium exterior did exactly that. Alternating between the Golden Knights and Kraken throwback marks, the banners carried the brand through the full approach to the venue, giving the event a presence that started well before the gates.
Designing for a stadium means designing for two audiences at once: the fans in the seats and the cameras broadcasting to everyone else. The outfield wall graphics had to read clearly on television and hold up against the visual noise of a packed house, making scale and contrast the top priority.
The two-story windows of the Hyatt Regency lobby gave us a canvas that was hard to ignore, and we didn't waste it. The three-panel layout split the Golden Knights mark, the Winter Classic logo, and the Kraken identity across the full span of glass, turning the hotel lobby into an event moment before guests even checked in.
