World Basketball Festival + the Make Something School

Retail, sports, and education innovation

Nike, Converse and the Jordan Brand took the World Basketball Festival and transitioned its message into a community creativity program.

The World Basketball Festival identity is a visually dynamic brand, utilizing unique typography and sports illustration by Saiman Chow, which has been seen around the city for the last few months. Created by Sheffield-based studio Sanderson Bob, glyphs from international languages are combined to create a typographic treatment that represents the world without the use of flags or maps.

The Make Something School is a creativity program developed by artist Aaron Rose that partnered with the brands in an event that structured a curriculum around the World Basketball Festival. Leveraging publicity from this innovative new event and the big brands involved, the Make Something School inspired creativity and benefited the local community.

The workshop funnelled the Nike brand along with well-known artists who incorporated inspiring messages such as “United we Rise” into creative activities. Kids excitedly interacted with Nike products and participated in the campaign.

Workshops included: • Teens working alongside Nike designers to transform Nike’s classic Destroyer jacket. Taking inspiration from the core countries of the World Basketball Festival, the combination of newly discovered skills, global inspiration and raw creative talent produced some exciting results. • Workshops with superstar Kevin Durant to design custom variations on the Jordan jersey and shorts as well as a chance to create their very own Hyperdunk trainer. • Local artist Eric Elms ran a day long collaborative exercise in color and expression which resulted in the large “United we Rise” mural.

Read about the event at the Make Something School website.

Images via the Make Something School and Sanderson Bob. 

Additional source: ItsNiceThat

(Melissa Scott)