FC21CA Branding — DEF Creations

FC21CA Branding:

The Director of Operations for Full Court 21 Canada, an international basketball tournament where 6 athletes compete against each other to gain the most points, tasked me to create work for their team's brand.

Initially, the concept was quite loose, which gave me free range to ideate how best to represent Full Court 21. I immediately knew I wanted to embody the athletic prowess of the players in question, whilst keeping in mind the tournament's goal of an inclusive and fun environment.

I went for an illustrative approach, one for the men's competition, and the other for the women. For the men I sketched a dynamic stand alone image, and utilized comic panels to tell a small story for the women; within both, the athletes’ competitive spirit is still captured.

After discussing with the Director of Operations, it became clear that a more concise and simplified design was desired. For the imagery, he wanted to use the New York train stops and Metro Card; since Canada produced the last 4 all world champions, Will wanted to use the copy “MapleGxng” and the image of the Canadian maple leaf, to further fuel the competitive nature of the tournament being held in New York.

With that in mind, I created designs for the brand’s shirts:

FC21CA Ladies First:

Another one of FC21CA’s brands is “Ladies First”, a panel that highlights women of color within basketball and sneaker culture. The Director of Operations tasked me with finding a way to succinctly marry the two within an image.

For my first round of ideation, I came up with this:

I once again started with an illustrative approach and brought in typography within the shoelaces. I also created a simplified version that brought the typography into the silhouette of a sneaker. Sneakers being the main image allowed for a wide variety of color combinations for the logo.

The Director of Operations liked the idea of the shoelaces and wanted to solely focus on that imagery for the logo. For the “Ladies First” logo I designed this:

To accompany this, Will was steadfast on implementing a ladybug whose shell mimicked the lines found on a basketball after bringing up the idea with his internal team.

The second iteration with Will’s new ask was finalized in this logo pairing.

FC21CA Hoopers Hoop:

Hoopers Hoop, a tertiary brand of FC21CA, is a film festival that highlights Vancouver filmmakers who focused their storytelling around basketball and the players within the sport.

The Director of Operations wanted logo ideations that merged the two worlds of basketball and film. With that in mind, I designed three different logos with multiple color variations.

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