A fresh start for Portway RDC with Umbraco

The Process

Ralph Media led the design process, starting with a complete rebrand. Inspired by the club’s rugby kit, we developed a bold new colour palette featuring rich burgundy and vibrant yellow, forming the foundation of a fresh set of brand guidelines. As part of this rebrand, we also created a distinctive new logo that clearly reflects the Portway RDC’s partnership with St Brendan’s, helping to visually connect the club’s identity with its wider community links.

Next, working closely with the Portway RDC team, we turned our attention to the Umbraco website design. As the facility offers a range of multi sport pitches and training areas, it was important that the site structure and content were clear, concise, and easy to navigate. Through a series of iterations, we refined the layout and design, ultimately arriving at a solution that balanced clarity with energy, making the site both informative and engaging for a wide range of users.

To give the client complete confidence before moving into the development, Ralph Media produced a full mock up of the entire website. This comprehensive design phase allowed any final tweaks or refinements to be addressed up front, reducing ambiguity and saving time during the build. These detailed visuals also served as a valuable reference for the Umbraco web development team, ensuring the final product stayed true to the approved vision.

The Outcome

The result is a vibrant, easy to manage website that finally feels like the Portway RDC and shows the close association with St Brendan’s. The bold new branding, sporting the club’s burgundy and yellow colours, brings energy and warmth to every page, helping the site reflect the personality of the people behind it. Visitors can now find key information quickly, whether they are booking a pitch, checking gym times, or exploring what the centre has to offer.

Behind the scenes, moving to Umbraco has made a real difference. The Portway RDC team can now update content confidently, without needing to wrestle with a templated system. What was once frustrating is now intuitive, and that ease of use means the site can grow and evolve alongside the club.

More than just a visual refresh, this was about giving the Portway RDC a platform that supports its ambitions, connects better with the community, and feels like a natural extension of the centre itself. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, from staff and visitors alike, and the new site has already started to make day to day tasks quicker and more enjoyable.

Ongoing Support

As part of the handover, we provided full training to the Portway RDC team, showing them how to confidently update content and images on their new site. They are now updating the website themselves with no website care plan needed. This is one of the key advantages of a well built Umbraco website. It is an affordable, low maintenance solution that puts control in the hands of the people who use it day to day.

While we are always here if they need help, whether it is adding new features or solving a tricky issue, our focus is on giving clients the confidence to manage things in house. The simplicity of Umbraco, combined with the way we custom build each site, means all the fuss is taken away. No updates, no plugins, just a clean, reliable platform that quietly does exactly what you need it to.