Rostara · 2026
A Consumer Sport Management App, From Zero to Launch
Rostara is a group manager for any recreational sport — fair teams, organized games, shared costs, and tournaments in one place. As co-founder and Creative Director at Canvas & Core Labs, I owned everything a player sees — brand, product UI, marketing, and website — and shipped it across iOS, Android, and web.
- Product
- Rostara
- Role
- Co-founder & Creative Director
- Year
- 2026
- Disciplines
- Brand Identity, Product UI, Web Design, Marketing, Creative Direction
The Product
Rostara turns the chaos of running a pickup sports group into one calm, capable app: build fair teams in a tap, see who’s actually coming, split costs without the awkwardness, and run a whole tournament season — for any sport. I co-founded Rostara at Canvas & Core Labs and led it as Creative Director, owning every part a player touches — the brand, the interface, the marketing, and the website — from first sketch to shipped product.
The Challenge
Pickup sports run on chaos: lopsided teams, RSVPs scattered across three group chats, money that gets awkward, and a spreadsheet nobody wants to maintain. Rostara had to absorb all of it into a single product that felt effortless. The harder creative problem was scope — a do-everything manager for any sport, built by a tiny founding team with no marketing budget, that still had to feel simple, trustworthy, and genuinely premium from the moment someone opened an invite link. Get the density wrong and it becomes another cluttered utility; get it right and it disappears into the background of game night.
The Approach
I set one creative principle — calm, confident, instantly legible — and drove it through every layer, so the invite, the app, and the campaign all felt like one thing. A warm, athletic identity on a deep-teal palette with a plain-spoken voice. A product UI that hides real complexity — private skill ratings, one-tap auto-balancing, shared-expense ledgers, auto-generated fixtures — behind simple, obvious actions. And a marketing campaign and website that explain the entire product at a glance and turn a single shared link into a playing group. Owning brand, product, and marketing together is what let a zero-budget launch still feel like a real, finished thing.
Marketing, Website & Shipping
With no budget, the marketing had to do the explaining. I built the campaign strategy and assets around one line — “fair teams, organized games, no spreadsheets” — and a website that walks a first-time visitor through the whole product in a single scroll, then hands them a link to start their group. Because Rostara ships as one browser-based app that installs to the home screen on any phone, there’s no app-store friction between seeing it and using it. I carried the product from that first pitch through brand, interface, marketing, and web to a shipped launch across iOS, Android, and web.
The Brand
Brand Identity · Art Direction
Rostara had to feel like the calm, capable friend who just handles the logistics — not a sports-betting app, not a corporate SaaS tool. I built the identity around a deep-teal system and a clean, athletic wordmark, paired with a plain-spoken voice that carries the promise straight from the marketing into the product: fair teams, organized games, no spreadsheets.
The same palette, type, and tone run through every screen, so the brand a player meets on the website is exactly the one they live in on game night.
The Product Interface
Product Design · UI
The core of Rostara is judgment made effortless — every screen collapses something that used to take a spreadsheet and a long group-chat argument into one clear, obvious action.
Player Ratings & Team Balance
The group rates each other on the skills that matter, and every rating stays private — no one sees who scored whom. At game time, Rostara splits everyone into even sides in a single tap and shows how close the match really is.
- One tap to auto-balance, or drag players between sides by hand
- A balance score, so the game is genuinely competitive
- Ratings averaged across the group — no single person decides
Attendance & RSVP
When a game is posted, RSVPs open and the list fills itself in. Waitlists, guest spots, and calendar links are built in, so no one is left counting heads in the group chat.
- Going, maybe, or not going — with a live count
- Waitlists take over automatically once the game fills
- Add to Google, Outlook, or Apple Calendar in one tap
Money & Bookkeeping
The group pot and every member’s balance live in one place. Members log what they paid, an admin signs it off, and the season closes out with numbers everyone trusts.
- Every pitch fee, ref payment, and member due in one ledger
- Payments wait on admin approval before they count
- Close a period and carry the pot forward to the next season
Tournaments & Standings
Set up a round-robin, a knockout, or a league into a knockout. Rostara draws the fixtures, and the table updates itself as each result goes in.
- Fixtures generated for you, round by round
- Standings with points, goal difference, and tiebreaks
- Everyone sees the current match and what’s next
All in One App
Everything else a group needs sits one tap away — a home screen that surfaces every open item, a hub that gathers every tool, and controls tuned so the app stays quiet until it matters.
- Home — every task, open item, and event in one place
- Group hub — every tool accessible from one screen
- Notifications — every alert individually switchable
- Notices — announcements that don’t scroll away
- 12 languages at launch
The Marketing Website
Web Design · Art Direction
With no budget behind the launch, the website had to do the selling — explain the whole product to a first-time visitor and hand them a way in. I designed and built the marketing site to carry the brand end to end: the deep-teal identity, the plain-spoken voice, and the same interface a player meets inside the app.
It’s structured as a single scroll that answers “what is this, and why should I care?” before it asks for anything — opening on the promise, walking each feature through real product screens, and closing on one clear action: start a group from a single shared link.
Scroll ↕ inside the window