Company Context
Supersapiens is the first company to commercialize a glucose monitor specifically meant for non-diabetic athletes
The First Glucose Monitoring System For Athletes
Supersapiens was chosen as the sole distributing partner of Abbott Laboratories, charged with marketing their new continuous glucose monitor aimed at athletes without diabetes. This would be the first time this technology was made available to the world of elite sports and granted it access to this hugely valuable data.
Supersapiens recruited the design studio I co-founded, Temple Design, to bring the brand and UI/UX from 0 to market and beyond. I found a name for the company, crafted the visuals which would lend polish and credibility to the project, and created pioneering user experiences that would allow athletes to optimize their performance by understanding and leveraging blood glucose data using the Supersapiens mobile app and CGM system.
Project Goals
1
Create An App Useful To Athletes
-
Phil, the founder, is an athlete with diabetes. He understood the impact of glucose on his performance and wanted to spread his knowledge.
2
Make An Outstanding Brand
-
The company believed it was sitting on the next big thing in sport science. It wanted to anchor itself as a legitimate player in the industry.
3
Communicate The Value Of Glucose Tracking
-
Pioneering a new market is great but it comes with challenges, such as convincing prospective customers of the value of your technology.
1. Create An App Useful To Athletes
Scope And Constraints
Unlike individuals managing diabetes, athletes use glucose data in a performance context.
The challenge was to structure the app in a way that supports their workflows; we identified 3:
Initial learning: understanding glucose data
Preparing: training, developing fueling strategies for race day and recovering
Performing: staying well fueled throughout an event
My Contributions
App UI/UX
Tools: Sketch
App animations
Tools: Flinto, Cinema 4D
Food and behavior overlays on the graph, visualized correlation with glucose levels.
Plus a visual indicator system allowed to easily understand whether a user is within / under / above their target glucose range.
The "Learn" hub guided users through how to interpret their data and also provided experiments for the users to try and learn by doing.
Workouts could be analyzed through the lens of glucose levels and compared with previous workouts to A/B test different fueling strategies
Stats like overall daily glucose intake and avg glucose served to monitor and optimize food intake before races.
The Supersapiens app could integrate with Garmin devices and additionally Supersapiens made a custom sport watch to directly pair with the glucose sensor to avoid having to have a phone on your person. We designed all of the screens for the watch and created a custom font to optimize space on the small screen.
2. Make An Outstanding Brand
Scope And Constraints
We had carte blanche on the brand. The product sold would be a glucose monitoring system for athletes, however we wanted to avoid cornering them by using a name that would be too specific. In addition, we understood that consumer education would be a major hurdle, so we wanted to create a brand that felt aspirational and polished to maximize the company's credibility and stickiness.
My Contributions
Naming
Color Logic And Palette
Brand Visuals For Marketing
Packaging Design
Creative Direction
Tools: Sketch, Adobe Suite
A logo system as flexible as the athletes Supersapiens serves
3. Communicate The Value Of Tracking Glucose
Scope And Constraints
One major challenge was convincing potential users of the value of glucose tracking for performance. With little existing sport-science research, Supersapiens had to build credibility from scratch—developing the science, product design, and messaging in tandem.
My Contributions
UI/UX of the marketing website
Tools: Sketch
Design of social posts and print material
Tools: Sketch, Adobe Suite
I designed a website that clearly communicates the function of the various elements within the Supersapiens system.
New visitors had to quickly understand what the system was comprised of hardware and software wise and how it could benefit their training.
The use of infographics was crucial to quickly communicate how eating too little or too much food could negatively affect ones performance and recovery. Driving home the need for an informed sport-nutrition strategy.
I created a multitude of social media and print graphics that combine athlete testimonials and enticing data graphics.
Conclusion
Supersapiens was one of the most fascinating and influential projects I've taken part in. There was so much to learn. I personally wore the monitor and started training more seriously to be able to understand the value of the data we were working with. Seeing the company go from 0 to being on the arm of the likes of Eliud Kipchoge made me appreciate the true value of distribution; I had made note-worthy brands and products before but they were nothing without the ability to get them in front of people's eyes.
Credits for work shown here
Mert Erdir
Design
My co-founder at Temple Design, we worked in tandem on creative direction for the brand as well as ideating solutions and executing on the App designs.
Christian Haberkern
Motion Graphics
For producing motion graphics that were used in the app and for marketing. Including the Logomark animation seen in the Goal 2 intro section.
Todd Furneaux
COO
Being a fervent amateur athlete, Todd worked alongside Mert and I informing some of the core ways in which we interpreted and served Glucose data in the app.
Fitzalan Crowe & Travis McKenzie
Marketing
For a stellar job at getting the product in front of some of the world's greatest athletes and making it easy for our social media designs to shine
Federico Fontana & The Science Team
Science
For pioneering the science behind glucose and performance and helping us understand how to best communicate these concepts within the app.