The Open Championship — bringing a print brand book to digital
The Open — Royal Portrush
Ecommerce · UX/UI — Delete (now UNRVLD)
Awarded following the full platform launch.
The Problem
The Open wanted to take their existing brand and make a fan-first digital experience that represented it. We also needed to turn The Open from a once-a-year, in-person event into a year-round digital experience.
I was part of a small design team at Delete delivering the 148th Open at Royal Portrush — the ticketing and fan experience. Working alongside lead designer Louis Shepard and head of design Tom Dougherty, I focused on the landing pages, the ticketing experience and UX, and the look and feel — bringing the print brand book into a digital world.
Original design comps, 2018 — placeholder copy and all. Not screenshots of the live site.
A fan first experience
With over 100 million people worldwide engaging with The Open throughout the year, its digital presence is one of the most critical brand touchpoints. The platform had to deliver a world-class fan experience, whether you were at the Championship in person or following it globally online.
We took the existing brand, the custom typography and the heritage, and made a digital fan-first experience — one that not only honoured the history but showed it off.
The Portrush site set a precedent that later carried across the wider Open digital platform. I worked with the team on the look and feel, the image treatments, and how The Open's custom font behaved inside the experience.
Every surface needed to either tell a story, or guide the fan to create their own by buying a ticket.
Ticketing
I worked on the ticketing flows and prototypes. The insight was that we didn't want it to feel like just another ecommerce basket — we wanted it to feel like part of the experience. Building excitement. These tickets aren't cheap; the journey needed to reflect that.
The outcome
A platform that turned The Open from a once-a-year event into a year-round brand experience, with more engagement and longer sessions. It set the direction for the digital transformation of The Open, which went on to win multiple design and technology awards.
Average session duration increase
56%
Uplift in revenue generated
72%
Fans engaging annually
100m+
While heritage and tradition are core to The Open’s standing as one of the world’s most revered sporting events, it’s also vital that innovation enables the Championship to grow its worldwide following. We are delighted with the new platform, that will enable us to provide an immersive, year-round experience.
Figures from UNRVLD’s reporting, following the full platform launch
