“When you’re passionate enough about a project, you’ll do what it takes to make it a top priority,” said Matt Tornquist, a Senior from Fishers, IN studying Industrial Management. Earlier this month, Matt and his brother, a recent Computer and Electrical Engineering Purdue grad, released their new sports design app called Uplink.
The app allows individuals to create engaging social content quickly for sports stats, games and match ups regardless of their design experience. It provides special templates specifically made to promote and officiate team competitions, and users can even import brand colors and logos. The custom ready-made graphics cover a variety of sports for any audience, spanning from collegiate sports fans to junior high football coaches wanting to promote a rivalry game. The easy, game-changing app is available for download in the app store.
How did this happen? The creation and marketing for Uplink was Matt’s first entrepreneurial experience. The project took 11 months from start to finish, and involved a majority of remote communication with his brother who helped develop the IOS back-end of the application. Matt was responsible for pre-designing all of the templates while also making them user friendly for Apple’s IOS. After the app was developed, Matt focused on marketing the app by mentioning sports teams or coaches on Twitter, since he feels well connected with the sports design community on that platform.
Even though Matt is an Industrial Management minor with an engineering focused stem concentration, he says that having the science and business background helps him with graphic design in order to both see how things work, and know how to explore a new concept and build off of it. Matt recommended that “Students should try new things that intrigue them—even if it’s not directly related to their studies,” and that “now is the time to explore since it’s not going to get any easier to pick up a new skill.” Matt currently works as a graphic design and animation intern with Purdue athletics, where he creates graphics for a variety of sports that contribute to social media platforms. He is graduating this May with aspirations to take app development and design full time.
Matt has been able to apply his passion and transform it into a viable career option, something we all want. Have you been able to incorporate your talents in a unique or inventive way? Tweet or Facebook us @PurdueCCO using the hashtag #IAMGOLDEN to tell us how you’re making an impact.
