A cartoonish identity for the “Tinder for golf” swings away from the sport’s stuffy persona

London-based design agency Wildish & Co are the creative team behind the identity for a peculiar yet wholesome-sounding new app Goolf, bringing fellow golfers together over games.

From the app’s tagline alone, you might get a sense of the size of the task at hand. To make the idea of friendship, fun and, crucially, approachability seem synonymous with golfing requires a drastic departure from the sport’s current old-school brand. While the sport might have recently begun to find its way into the pop and fashion zeitgeist, by way of Tyler the Creator and Schoolboy Q, how does this update work from a design perspective? For Goolf at least, Wildish & Co have looked to historic golfing iconography, remixed with a vintage illustrative style. “Think 70s crazy golf vibes,” confirms Sam Fresco, managing director at Wildish & Co.

For the character illustrations appearing across Goolf, the design agency worked with David Roberts to help “lift the brand out from the usual tech space trapping”, says Sam. Just as playful and “iconic” is the general style hoped to be achieved with the illustration set. Wildish & Co wanted to create a brand inspired by often irreverent youth culture to reposition golf for the next generation. In the process, the agency took cues from the likes of cannabis brand Paradiso Gardens by OMFG and explorer-inspired retailer Camp, designed by Young Jerks.

Wildish & Co extends a similar sense of personality to the branding’s type too, particularly where the Goolf wordmark is concerned. With a curving G, the logo references both the shape of a golf course, as well as “the cartoonish flight that a golf ball takes as it loops through the air” – “a fun idea that also felt quite visceral,” explains Sam. The final logo even includes “flight lines”, tracing the ball’s path. Meanwhile, for supporting typography the agency was primarily inspired by classic golf scoreboards.

Across the entire project, Sam describes that the agency had to consistently toe the line between keeping visuals playful and aligning them to the tech startup world Goolf ultimately sits within. For this, colour palettes were an important tool. While a seemingly expected green was chosen for the lead colour, Wildish & Co purposefully steered clear of “classic fairway green”, introducing its tech-ier, brighter cousin. “And to complete the identity, a key part of the brand’s visual language was the photography direction,” says Wildish & Co, which comes together with shots of golfers on the course, emphasising friendship and a certain sense of refreshing relaxedness for the sport.