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I started the project with a clear vision of a journey, the journey from America to the UK of the sport that is basketball; I looked at different advertising techniques of basketball including English and American and looked into different graphic artists that work for sporting brands such as NIKE and copied there styles to gain an understanding of the software and eventually moved on to my own style after a long experimental stage to find my own style, under the ‘vinyl’ logo as it was ambiguous and allowed me to do whatever I wanted without boundaries to have full exploration of the software and my imagination, whilst keeping related themes however and eventually drawing the two paths together to create a final piece from the skills I have learned through my journey from the beginning of the project.

I first looked into simple ad ideas from the NBA, and sketched up ideas, I quickly became interested in the idea of ownership from the UK of the NBA and started sketching up logos of Teams in British cities with new logos and names in NBA style. I started to move onto the Computer to create the similar sleek logos of the NBA, and started looking into Basketball graphic designers and how I could create a style I wanted to create the logos with.

Sketch Up of Ideas

A look at different basketball advertising in the UK from a trip to london.

How music is used in basketball advertising.

NBA ad draft featuring French player Tony Parker

I started on the computer by using simple creation of portraits inspired by Naturel, an artist from DC, these designs used geometric patterns to create a full portrait with a ‘3D’ look.

Stephen Curry-NBA Point Guard

Self Portrait

Naturel

Naturel is a DC based graphic artist, he uses mosaic shapes to interlock as he creates images based around pop culture. This unique style and eye grabbing images using pop culture influence have caused him to explode online, and he has got deals with nike and sneaker head magazine to do multiple illustrations such as portraits of athletes or illustrations of their signature shoes.

Lebron James

Pharrell Williams

Wu-Tang Clan Logo

I like Naturel's simple style and how it creates new texture to images, i also like how he uses the same influences as me in basketball culture and rap/hip hop music.

 I wanted more of a connection to my work however, and looked into other graphic designers and found Razauno, who creates pop art inspired works using bold lines and Hatching patterns along with repeating icons for shading. I enjoyed these more as I was drawing the image by hand and felt like it enabled more creativity and personalisation, I even created works on how I felt when listening to different songs such as a funk inspired piece.

A handgun inspired by Razauno's use of knives and weapons in his art

Portrait of a Friend

Kendrick Lamar-LA native, Lakers fan

The funk song that inspired my kendrick lamar portrait- Kendrick Lamar, King Kunta

Razauno

This led to the creation of fully drawn images relating to the satanic image of rap music (a large influence and influenced by basketball). I thoroughly enjoyed using a gothic theme and tried to create more grotesque images, but was hindered by the simplicity of the NBA.

Wu-Tang Clan logo to experiment with a new style, plus the incorporation of the Union Jack.

Rappers I feel are portrayed as 'satanic' such as being said to be in the illuminati

Music Video that inspired the work-Earl Sweatshirt, Chum

I decided whilst looking into graffiti artists such as neck face that I found other graffiti culture was influence and had designs on clothing. So I started ‘Vinyl Clothing’ a side project I could use to explore the idea I was moving towards without restraint. I started with highly detailed yet cartoon portraits, first of Nigel Farage, then of an eagle. I created a portrait of NBA player James Harden to experiment with how these new styles were versatile and to keep relations to my project.

Nigel Farage as a satanic figure (because I really don't like him)

Eagle

James Harden-NBA shooting Guard

Neck Face

Neck Face uses an extremely graphic and disturbing art style, I don't really know why I like it, I don't think anyone should like it to be honest, it's really weird. I used this grotesque imagary early on in my designs.

A panda kinda thing inspired by Neck Face.

Loul Deng-NBA Small Forward

I designed this ad using my experimentation of free hand drawing, communication of a message and incorporation of text, the focus is on british NBA player Loul Deng, and is done in a media I had been experimenting with, and used a font that i felt matched the style. The message is that of the 3 teams in America he has played for, the only place he can call home is England. It's meant to show the british NBA fans that no matter how insignificant Britain seems to the NBA and vice versa, that actually it can be tremendously important.

When creating these images I realized that text was an issue in my work and kept my work from looking ‘one-pieced’ and rather looking like someone had stuck my brand name on a different picture. From this I moved on to using patterns inside text to relate to the image below creating unity between a logo and text.

Vinyl logo inspired by Chance The Rapper

Vinyl-'pattern' collection

Then using patterns I could look into colour and making multiple 90s themed Images of NBA involved rappers using a ‘90s’ colour palette and pattern set I created could create new styles. I also used wand drawn writing to keep the laid back feeling of the 90s basketball culture.

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Pharrell Williams-Performed at the NBA all-star game

Kanye West-Chicago Bulls fan

Schoolboy Q-LA Lakers fan

I was looking at things like this when I created these pictures:

Now with the full knowledge of how I can use font, colour palettes and the different tools in Adobe Illustrator, I started to design NBA logo inspired works for the ‘Vinyl’ label.

Logos designed from inspiration of the slick clean NBA logos such as:

Looking At Fonts in advertising at the Design Museum

After feeling confident enough, I created my idea for the exhibition of 8 NBA logos with new UK colour schemes inspired by the Team GB advertisements and with new slogans to replace the team name in the same font design, hand drawn. And finally a piece explaining the ad campaign and how I want the audience to ‘own’ the NBA and embrace it as a new UK sport, with my Lion design sitting in the middle to show that the heart of the project is Britain itself.

Inspiration behind these: