Youth Pins

Do you remember the first time you sent a Yellow tag? What about a Blue or Red?

These pins are exactly this - a milestone marker for members of our Youth program. Marking those moments when something just “clicks”.

So what changed?

The old pins were pretty straightforward. We had our old triangle logo, colour coded to match our grading system. They were fine - but with our rebrand, we thought we could make them even better.

With everything that we’d been doing with the rebrand, we wanted the pins to feel fun, and coveted - something you’d want to show off to your friends and be proud of. Something for the youth to get really psyched over.

We worked with our head coach Ash on this one. A lot of it came down to a simple question… what would kids actually like?

Same levels, new feel

The structure hasn’t changed, it still follows our grading colours:

Yellow → Blue → Red → Green → Black

What’s different is the personality behind each pin. Each one now has its own animal theme or biome attached to it. It gives kids a way to connect and feel excited about the next animal they’ll get. Our personal favourite is the Beehive!

Part of the rebrand

These weren’t designed as a one-off thing. They actually reflect a broader approach we’re using everywhere else - drawing from the same natural and organic references that we use with the general Portside brand.

What we’ve already noticed is that the pins get used everywhere - chalkbags, hats, backpacks - kids keep track of them and progress is shared between friends.