Chicago Softball Hall of Fame Chicago Softball Hall of Fame | 

Location:

Forest Park, IL

Client Objectives:

For many years, the Chicago 16″ Softball Hall of Fame Committee yearned for a home plate. Somewhere to celebrate and promote the homegrown sport they loved. A place they could dig in, educate, and inspire new players to carry on the game.

After securing a location in Forest Park, IL, they looked to Motif to help bring the dream to life. Modest budgets were a challenge, but the opportunity to create something unique for our hometown was all that mattered.

Motif's Design:

Motif supported the project from its earliest days — designing many rounds of creative for fundraising efforts and helping to conduct facility searches long before the Forest Park location was granted for use. We worked together with the client’s architects and facilities team to prep the space for use. After installing new windows, restrooms, flooring, and entryways, we had the perfect blank canvas to design an experience Chicago sports fans would treasure.

In the final design, visitors entered a corridor containing a long timeline of the sport’s history complete with artifacts from the game’s earliest days. The end of the tunnel held a giant replica of a Chicago 16″ Softball that was fabricated by Motif. The piece was created with actual softball covering provided by the deBeers company, who makes the iconic ball.

Showcases full of memorabilia celebrated the industrial leagues, women in the sport, Chicago high school teams, and famous Chicagoans who played the game. The experience finished with a four-monitor kiosk containing a digital archive of information on the Hall of Fame’s members. Here, attendees could spend time learning about these players and their accomplishments.

Results:

In the end, we created an environment that properly tells the story of Chicago’s game — while preserving history and featuring the unique personalities that make both the game and the city special.

This was truly a one-of-a-kind project. An experience Motif will always remember with pride.