To engage student athletes with the newly launched Devlin S-AFE Program, the Boston College Life Skills Department turned to 3thought. The task was to create a piece that would stand out from mounds of papers these young athletes receive as part of their collegiate experience. The Life Skills team wanted the piece to feel very personal and have an emotional point of contact, but at the same time, it needed to scream “Open Me.”

3thought concepted several potential formats, but settled on this 5.5 x 8.5 in roll fold format because of it’s approachability. The small size instantly creates a sense of intimacy. We added the dramatic die cut cover for the “wow” factor and reinforce the brand of the BC Eagles. The remainder of the interior was imprinted with a warm tone,  paper texture to keep the piece feeling soft and personal.

The feature panel of the entire brochure is first panel revealed when the die cut cover is lifted. The Life Skills team felt that his Ghandi quote perfectly summarized the mission of the program and the college. A carefully crafted collage of student athletes participating in community service fills the letters and reinforces the message.

The multitude of participants was juxtaposed with a full bleed photo on the next panel to show that one can make a difference, and further deepening the layers of messaging the brochure delivers.

In the end, this seemingly simple piece is one that both 3thought and the Life Skills team is very proud.

If you’re a Boston College Student and interested in learning more or getting involved with the Devlin S-AFE Progam, please contact Alison Quandt; Director of the Life Skills Program at Boston College at 617-552-1784.

Project Background: Again this fall, Boston College approached 3thought to design their annual football camp brochure. It’s a project Matt’s worked on the last 4 years and one of 3thoughts favorite and most recognizable projects. Each year we really push ourselves to do something different and step up our efforts from the year before, and with the help of the team, this year’s project was no exception.

Concept: 3thought met with the team to discuss themes for this years camp. The target audience for this brochure is high school age boys who play football, so we all knew we wanted something that spoke to your typical teenage boy. Two rough ideas (seen above) were sketched up and presented to Boston College. The first concept was entitled “Champions are built here” and included images of a factory with players being built. The second concept was the idea of video game packaging with the theme of stepping up your game throughout. The hugely popular EA sports Madden franchise would serve as the inspiration for this concept. In the end, Boston College liked both ideas, but chose to go with the video game theme.

Design: 3thought worked with Boston College to gather images of all current BC Alumni in the NFL, as well as schedules, bowls, team facts and information about the camp. The difficult part  for us was finding a way to integrate all of this content and carry it through the brochure while maintaining the feeling of a video game. We decided to make the front and back sides look like an actual package. We chose Matt Ryan who’s arguably BC’s most popular current NFL player and we also chose Ron Brace who’s a local guy playing for the local team. Important information about the camp was added to the back page similar to where you’d find information on an actual game package. For the interior we tried to make something that looked like what you might see on a screen as you were playing. The dates and schedule were worked into the interface and actual photos of players were cut our and slightly pixelated and added placed on the field at BC’s Alumni Stadium. We also created the supplemental registration/application sheets and used recent grad and last year’s Superbowl champion Jolon Dunbar as the highlighted player.

Visit the BC Eagles Homepage

Download the Brochure

Download the Application

This fall 3thought was contacted by Boston College to create this years Men’s Hockey Poster. It’s a project that Matt’s worked on 3 out of the last 4 years and here’s a fun fact… Much to the dismay of BU fans, each year he’s designed the poster, they’ve actually won the NCAA Championship. This year’s team is looking good and hopes to repeat last year’s performance.

The idea behind this year’s poster was something that 3thought bounced around with BC marketing department and the hockey team. We agreed that we wanted to emphasize BC Hockey’s tradtion and excellence over the past decade, but we also wanted to let their fan’s know that this years team is ready to work hard. That’s where the motto of “Shovel Ready” came from.

From a design standpoint, we did our best to create a memorable mood with the design. We chose to only use color for the players and logo, and keep the rest icy and cold. We incorporated the three latest championship trophies into the skyline to hammer home the decade of excellence idea (looking back), and created scaffolding and construction of a new trophy (looking forward). Another little touch we added was the frozen BC logo in the middle. Many of the other sports have been using the gold button logo, and we wanted the hockey team to stand out and be unique.

The final poster size is 3 feet wide, by 1 foot tall, so it’s a bit difficult to show in it’s entirety on screen, so here’s a nice shot to show some of the detail.

View “full size” poster

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

Download your very own BC Men’s Hockey Desktop Wallpaper.

2011 Boston College Men’s Hockey Poster (with schedule)

1920 x 1200 – Download

1680 x 1050 – Download

1440 x 900 – Download

1280 x 800 – Download

2011 Boston College Men’s Hockey Poster (without schedule)

1920 x 1200 – Download

1680 x 1050 – Download

1440 x 900 – Download

1280 x 800 – Download

Congratulations to Jerry York on receiving the 2010 Lester Patrick Trophy! Congrats to Dave Andrews, Cam Neely and Jack Parker as well.

-3thought

• Learn More about Coach York, this years recipients and the Lester Patrick Trophy on NESN.com.
• Lester Patrick Award – Wiki Page

We were delighted last year when Boston College Athletics asked us to work on their Annual Report. The project was one of our first at 3thought and we loved the result. We’re so happy Boston College decided to give us a shot again this Spring, and we think the results are just as good the second time around. 

As last year’s piece was very well received, Media Relations wanted to try to capture the same spirit (we believe the word used was “cool”) and still make a piece that was unique and stood out. The key design directive was to highlight the success Boston College Athletics had on and off the field. The layout also had to support a series of special question and answer articles from not only their athletic director Gene DeFilippo, but their new head basketball coach Steve Donahue as well. And all of  that had to mix with the traditional academic, development, community service and news stories.

Our challenge was to communicate a large volume of content within a space that seemed open and easy, yet still held the reader’s attention. One of the most important components was, of course, the cover which needed to depict iconic moments of past, current and future accomplishments. We captured the overall theme of piece in the single word “VICTORIOUS” stacked in a bold, contemporary fashion that constructed a frame for a variety of photographic images. The letters were printed in gold metallic ink to further add to their impact. The end product exceeded everyone’s expectations.

We invite you to explore the entire report by flipping through the thumbnails below.

As always, Media Relations did a great job of being prepared, managing the gathering of photos and copy. George H. Dean Printing in Braintree, MA did the printing and delivered an exceptional product again this year.

If you have any comments or questions, we always encourage you to leave them in comment box below.

-m&s