Chris Znerold Product + Brand Systems · AI Design Engineering

From Coach to Company

Creative director for True Swing, 2024 Live, 2024

A player in a deep green True Swing polo, front and back, the yellow wordmark embroidered across the shoulders

Strategy:

Erika Larkin’s name sells the lesson. True Swing is a second brand beside her name, one that runs events and stocks a shop without her on the tee.

Design:

A serif wordmark, a badge and a bird-and-club mark, run from a polo down to a printed ball and a jar of joint cream. The site puts Learn and Shop together.

Leadership:

I was the director at Portal, across identity, packaging and apparel. The shop went live in 2024. Erika’s business has grown from one or two coaching clients to a calendar of more than a dozen events.

Product in Hand

The jar is the tell.

A motel-tag keychain stamped True Swing 18, a blush yardage book, a ball printed with the badge, and a jar of joint cream. The jar is the tell: a coach’s brand that sells a product.

A golf ball printed with the circular badge on a flat green ground, beside a joint cream jar carrying the bird mark

The key

Stamped True Swing 18.

A yellow motel-tag keychain and a blush yardage book with a hand-drawn hole map. Small things that go home in a bag and get seen every day.

A yellow motel-tag keychain stamped True Swing 18, and a blush yardage book printed with a hand-drawn hole map

Product in Life

Lesson and ball, one place.

You book the lesson and buy the ball on the same site, findyourswing.com. The polo you wear to the range says what the lesson did: ‘Unlock your game’.

The True Swing site on a desktop monitor: blush field, Learn and Shop navigation, and Unlock Your Game set over a swing photograph

Identity

Bird and club.

A serif wordmark with the script line under it, a circular badge, a tee-and-ball monogram and a bird perched on a club, on blush. Green does the rest.

The identity suite on blush: a serif wordmark with the script line Unlock your Game, a circular badge lockup, a tee-and-ball monogram, and a bird-and-club mark

Brand book

A name becomes a company.

A brand book is how a name becomes a company. Coaches, camps and a shop carry the badge and the bird without the founder in the room, and every new hire starts from the same page.

Brand book01/14
The brand guidelines cover: the True Swing wordmark with the bird, yellow on a deep green topographic ground
Section divider: Identity, white serif on peach
Primary logo lockup: the circular badge, green on peach and yellow on green
Secondary logo lockup: the wordmark with the bird, on green, on peach and on kiwi
Wordmark: True Swing with the script line Unlock your Game, and the wordmark across the palette
Symbol: the bird on the club in six color pairings
Monogram: the tee-and-ball mark in six color pairings
Logo minimums: the badge, the wordmark and the symbol from two inches down to a quarter inch
Clear space: the badge and the wordmark with the bird as the unit of clear space
Incorrect use: six things not to do with the logo
Primary color palette: Peach, Grass, Papaya, Lemon, Kiwi, Warm Grey and Bright White with hex and Pantone values
Typography: Fairytale for headlines, America as the secondary face, Open Sans for text
Illustration approach: warm mid-century golf illustrations, patterns and a Golf Emporda poster
Photography approach: sun-drenched greens, players in the brand's peach, green and kiwi

Paid media

Ads that sell the room.

A golf brand sells in feeds, not on the range. Vertical reels do the recruiting, one line per swing, so a small-group retreat fills from a phone before the coach says a word.

Instagram reels01/6
An Instagram reel unit: The Gold Standard in Golf Instruction over gold golf balls
An Instagram reel unit: Here Birdie Birdie Birdie over close grass
An Instagram reel unit: Relax, Refine and Return a Better Player over a green ball
An Instagram reel unit: From Slice to Nice, two swings
An Instagram reel unit: From Whiff to Win, a bunker shot and a putt
An Instagram reel unit: From Bogey to Birdie, a player at the tee and at the green

Product in Culture

Hours, or a name.

Golf instruction is sold by the hour, one coach to one student. Every coach with a following hits the calendar. The ones who get past it sell something you can wear.

A blush wallscape billboard with an oversized iron face and the line Unlock Your Game
12+Events

From one or two coaching clients. The shop went live in 2024.

Position:

Head of Brand & Product at Portal

Services:

Identity, packaging, apparel

Partner:

True Swing, Erika Larkin

Status:

Live, 2024