Golf Tee Typography

After months of work, we completed one of the largest, more interesting internal projects to date. Determined to hang something meaningful on the walls of our new office, we embarked on a journey to create an 8-by-4-foot wall art composed of ordinary golf tees and a modified piece of pegboard. Check out the end result. . . .

The Process

In line with how these things seem to go, the process was neither as easy nor as brief as first anticipated. We needed a high enough resolution to clearly display letters of this size, so we began by doubling the number of holes found in an ordinary sheet of pegboard. Put simply, we drilled about 4,000 holes. For the geeks out there, the resolution of our board ended up being about 1.9 hpi (holes per inch).

We also sanded, framed and painted the board to achieve a finished look. After moving the board to our office, we soon discovered that the 10,000 golf tees we had ordered to fill the holes were too large. Actually, Brandon discovered this in an afternoon of epic frustration as he attempted to hammer the ill-fitting tees in the board.

After ordering appropriately sized tees, the tedious process of creating the design ensued. A full-size template of the design was created on the computer, and then tile printed onto letter-sized sheets of copy paper to create a full-size template. After several weeks of team effort—pushing tees into the board—and with Lindsay’s motivational mantra of “at least 5 tees a day,” we’re finally done!

The Design

One of the underlying virtues of this piece is in its ability to be changed. The tees can be rearranged to create a new design. That said, as we put a lot of thought into what we wanted the “first” design to be, it won’t be changed anytime soon.



You’ll find the same design on the back of our business card. It says it all: we help our clients connect with their audiences by combining world-class design and technology across a variety of outlets. Not only that, we provide the strategy to integrate a client’s message across all touchpoints.

If you haven’t seen the golf tees yet, be sure to drop by and check it out.

Comments (1)|Posted by: Mark Schafer, 11 October 2010 at 1:05pm

Alison Ashe

Alison solves visual communication problems through a process of research, concept exploration, and original thinking.

Sarah Loebner

Sarah worked for agencies in Ohio and Boston before coming to Knoxville seven years ago and burnishing her reputation as an innovative designer and fresh thinker. While inspiring design is her form of communication her passion lies in client partnerships,

Josh Loebner

Josh combines research and strategic thinking as the foundation for powerful, goal-oriented marketing experiences.

Lindsay Miller

Lindsay is dedicated to the unrelenting pursuit of delivering unique, effective media solutions that bring a company's message to life.

Joseph Nother

As co-founder and creative director for Designsensory, Joseph oversees teams that deliver award-winning and compelling design.

Brandon Rochelle

Brandon, co-founder and technical director, oversees technology development spanning interactive work through online marketing.

Susan Sewell

Susan brings a background as a writer, senior editor, promotion specialist, and project manager.

Erin Slattery