The full design trail for the Southbound & Crown (Charlotte FC + Greenville Triumph supporters group) rebuild — every concept that got built, in order, plus the requirements doc that formalizes what ships next.
Built directly against the brief's forbidden-pattern list. Each owns a different source object, palette, and behavior. None has been approved yet.
SBC’s real sticker, crest, and supporter artwork become a living poster system: cool paper, Charlotte blue, Triumph gold, and the red already present in the 2025 Carolina sticker. The two-club selector keeps SBC in front while club color enters only where it carries meaning. This direction also proves the system on a functional member-management screen with working search, filters, selection, CSV export, and add/edit interactions.
→ Direction 9SBC drives members across two states to two different clubs, and tracks who's actually showing up for things like the annual capacity-capped bus to Atlanta — so the site borrows the most legible visual language ever built: guide-sign panels, exit tabs, mile markers. The two-club problem resolves as one overhead gantry, two destination tabs. Signature piece: a schematic map of the Royal Family Tailgate Lot.
→ Direction 10The scarf is the single most supporters-culture-true object SBC owns — it leads the member kit and "scarves up" is the real pre-kickoff gesture. A woven SVG scarf raises itself as the hero; a yarn thread stitches every section together. Two-club problem: one scarf, two dyed ends.
Scarves Up won. Two full builds followed inside the real southbound-crown Next.js
app. Each stood as the actual live homepage for a while before the next replaced it.
Both still work. Only one is current.
The thread from the hero scarf runs the length of the page as real geometry: a three-ply cotton cord rendered in WebGL, lit from one warm key light. It threads through a ticket's eyelet, wraps brass pegs down a horizontal tailgate timeline, weaves under and over four embroidered patches, then knits the member scarf back into existence row by row. Chris watched it scroll and said, "I finally like it."
→ Prior homepage ArchivedA drawn SVG yarn spine runs through five numbered scenes: a matchday compass, the tailgate lot as a route, patches inside an embroidery hoop, the final scarf reassembling at membership. It stays live at its own permanent URL, so the next direction has something real to be measured against.
Formalizes both finalists plus the full public/member/admin scope into a real PRD — priorities, a recommendation between the two directions, and every open business decision, flagged.
Public site, member portal, and admin console. Priority-tagged requirements, a historical recommendation between Wayfinding and Scarves Up, success metrics, a phased delivery plan, and a consolidated list of every TBD/OUTSTANDING decision — from the billing model to legal entity status.
Read the PRD →The full paper trail. Kept for reference and so the forbidden-pattern list in the brief has receipts. "Feels AI-generated" was the verdict on these early concept builds.
2nd favorite — rejected. Too much orange, too generic, "looks like an AI build site."
Favorite of the early set — still rejected. Still too much orange. "Blocky is fine" but still reads AI-built.
Hard pass. "Feels AI-built and designed by a Haiku-level model." Doesn't read as designed at all.
southboundcrown.com site.
Sample/placeholder data throughout; no real backend and no real photography (the current directions
deliberately avoid stock imagery rather than fake it — see each direction doc). Best viewed
on both mobile and desktop.