In mid February I visited the event we designed for Nike as part of their presence at the NBA All Star weekend in Houston Texas. We contributed to the creative direction, concept and design of AREA72, a custom event space intended to showcase the All Star pack of footwear, released exclusively for the All Star Event, for the three biggest names in the game, Lebron James, Kobe Bryant and Kevin Durant.
Located in a custom event dome on the ground floor of the Galleria in Hoston, Area72 allowed Visitors to engage in 3 distinct planetary zones as well as a zone for Nike Sports Wear and an additional series of custom footwear. The space also included a customisation zone for product to be customised on the spot with the preference of the fan. An adjacent Footlocker was dedicated to the All Star range for the duration of the event and was wall to wall with hungry fans all weekend.
As not a lot of the work we produce for Nike reaches us here in Australia, to see all of our ideas come to life was inspiring. From neon, smoke machines, planetary installation/chandelier to footwear terrariums and on it goes. To visit the event and experience the depth, detail and strategy behind the event was a massive learning exercise. Our contribution was on overall concept development and campaign art direction drilling down to design elements including custom typography, digital interfaces and installations for the event space and retail experience which was interpreted and applied to all other related activities such as offsite coaching clinics other associated activities.
In addition to experiencing how our work is applied and constructed, it was also great to see how the many different divisions and offices within Nike combine to create a total experience locally at the event, in Houston, simultaneously through key retail stores in the USA and the simultaneous social media impact it created, prompted by the #ballbeyondlimits hash tag and real time event social media wall on site. By the end of the weekend visitors had uploaded over 700 images to Instagram including the culmination of the event where each of the 3 athletes were presented with their game shoes for the All-Star game itself on the event stage adjacent to the dome.
Casting back to late last year when we were first briefed it’s inspiring to see the entire campaign of activity from the event space, the footwear design, the retail experience and all other channels of communication responding directly to the strategy at every level.
More project images will be on our site soon.