Outdoor Rack Builder

Roles - Art Director, Visual Designer

What is Outdoor Rack Builder?

Outdoor Rack Builder (or as we like to call it - ORB) is a website designed to help adventurers of all skill level plan and prepare for outdoor adventures excursions. 

Outdoor - this is where the adventures mostly take place.

Rack - this is a jargon-y term for the gear you need to bring with you on your adventure.

Builder - this is a reference to the main function of the site. Building the rack online first, to get you on your way to your adventure! 

The site was created by my partner in August of 2019, who asked me to sign on as an art director, and later on a UI designer.

What did I do?

My first task was to do some exploration into branding for ORB. As a rock climber, I was inspired by some of my own gear I use when at the gym or outside. The orange and blue Petzl Attache carabiners, my favorite type of carabiners, came to mind as a fun motif I could incorporate. The orange and blue shades of the Petzl carabiners also became the cornerstones of the ORB color palette. 

My favorite use of the carabiner motif was when I was ideating for ORB’s logo on the site. Some of the carabiners I was drawing looked a lot like they could be letters. I attempted to add them in as Os or as Bs, but what ended up working quite well was the carabiner as a D. This was a delightful detail that I loved.

As I was then brainstorming for ORB’s Instagram image, I wanted to do something a little different. So I got to drawing some ideas to just utilize the letters ORB larger and updating the carabiner illustration to look a little more like it could be an O. We landed on another blue carabiner for the O with a dark background and the R and B in white. It really pops on the ORB Instagram profile and contributes to the ORB branding.