National Collegiate Athletic Association
Olympians Made Here (Paris 2024 Olympic Games)
The first large-scale campaign I worked on at the NCAA was the pre-existing Olympians Made Here (the NCAA’s campaign highlighting the funnel from college athletics to the Olympic & Paralympic Games). Our efforts over the span of 3 weeks included hundreds of individual medalist graphics created in near-realtime (more difficult because of the cross-Atlantic time difference), daily medalist counter updates for web & email, and dozens of one-off specialty graphics celebrating stand-out athletes like Anthony Davis or Katie Ledecky.
NCAA Records
Records are a big deal in sports. We wanted to create a look that stood out for the moments that really mean something. I used primarily blue tones to make it instantly recognizable, with huge scoreboard dot matrix style typography for its universal meaning & energizing, scroll-stopping presence.
This is just a small selection of the 80+ record graphics I created throughout the 2024–25 college sports season.
Awareness Months
Awareness months are more of a continual project. Nearly every month has a theme that we emphasized — the challenge was creating a strategy that worked whether it’s Black History Month, Women’s History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, or Mental Health Awareness Month. Packages typically included a “by the numbers” piece at the beginning of the month, a set of footer overlays for use on social & web, and occasionally other one-offs like a social swipe on Jackie Robinson.
Black History Month
Women’s History Month
An exception to our traditional holiday strategy was World Basketball Day 2024. Because of the huge effect the NCAA has on professional basketball, the team took a more energetic approach to this specific day with a social graphic carousel highlighting the Association’s importance to the sport.
World Basketball Day 2024
Changes
The decision for NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) deals to not only be allowed, but encouraged by the NCAA is possibly the biggest one to happen in the past 100 years for college sports. The communications department of the NCAA wanted to get ahead of negative narratives and position the NCAA as leading a “new era of college sports.”
Because of the sensitivity around what was perceived as professional moneymaking in college sports being allowed for the first time, I was tasked to use AI to modify select student-athlete pictures to be unrecognizable as the original athlete to make the message the focus instead of possible legal issues.
None of the athletes you see below are recognizable as the original images.
This campaign was a huge undertaking — 6 unique messages, 120+ pieces of creative, crafted in ~8 hours.
Eligibility Center College Sports Playbook Release
Determining the eligibility of incoming student-athletes is one of the biggest functions of the NCAA, and yet this year the original plan for the NCAA College Sports Playbook Release was to post a PDF cover to Instagram.
That approach would likely miss the entire intended core audience for this playbook…young people.
Our team flipped this one on its head, boosting the effort to the max. This carousel would need to live pinned to the top of the @NCAA Instagram channel for high-visibility. It was important to get this one right.
I used parametric filters to create “patches” and woven textures for the smaller copy — the goal to make the reader feel like they were the ones who could wear the jacket.
We highlighted multiple sports, every division, and invested in the details. I’m very happy with the result.
United States Government Relations
A very different but integral side of NCAA communications is government relations. These pieces were printed with US Senators or Congressmen as the intended audience, left behind in seats in DC. Data visualization was the main muscle I stretched here.
Milan Cortina (2026 Olympic Games)
The creative direction for the NCAA’s Olympians Made Here campaign for the 2026 MiCo Winter Olympic & Paralympic Games is the biggest project I’ve ever managed. In late Summer/early Fall of 2025 I put together a mood board for my vision, drawing inspiration from the glassy attributes of clear ice. Refractions, aberrations, crystal textures, and prismatic effects could help the often excellent Olympic photography take center stage.
