phoenix mercury 2024
offseason creative exploration
In the lead up to the start of the 2024 WNBA season, the creative team within the Phoenix Mercury was tasked with creating mood boards, design elements, and practical examples. This section is a showcase of my contributions to the 2024 season creative campaign.
Light flares
Throughout the brainstorming and ideation phase of the creative campaign I experimented with a variety of different mediums. One of those experiments yielded incredible results in the form of these light flare photos. These would ultimately serve as a core component of our backgrounds and visual identity for the season.
Materials/Gear used:
1 Aputure MC RGBWW LED Light
Some plastic packaging wrappers
1 aluminum table coaster
Camera: Nikon D5300
Lens: Sigma 17-50mm f/2.8 EX DC OS HSM F-Mount
Accessories: Tiffen Black Pro Mist 1/8 lens filter
While processing the photos in Lightroom, I began to notice visual similarities shared between the photos with the aluminum coaster reflecting the light from the Aputure LED box and the Phoenix Mercury logo. This would lead me to experiment further with creating more variants of the flares. The final flare photos used as background elements carry the same grittiness of this team, as well as the grit of the desert.
Light flares in use: Brittney Griner 3rd All-Time in Blocks stat graphic
Stat & milestone graphics
Rebel Jersey Campaign Elements
The 2024 WNBA season marked a new era for the Nike Rebel jersey program for the Phoenix Mercury. The new rebel jersey is directly inspired by the iconic 2020-21 City Edition Jersey, AKA "The Valley" Jersey, worn by the Phoenix Suns. Both Jerseys feature a pixelated motif of a sunset sky in Arizona.
I had the honor of creating the launch graphic showcasing the brand new Rebel Jersey
Paper Pixel Cutouts
The setup consisted of a black notebook serving as the background and hand cut paper to create the forms. I captured each variation with my Nikon D5300 camera with a Sigma 17-50mm f/2.8 EX DC OS HSM lens.
This additional element is a cropped photo of the edge of my notebook after some heavy post-processing. The grit and contrast added an additional element of texture to the Rebel Jersey creative campaign.
The X-Factor
The heart and soul of the Phoenix Mercury, the X-factor are the fans that make the arena roar, giving the Mercury the best homecourt advantage in the WNBA. With this in mind, I also explored different ways to incorporate them deeper into our visual identity. The X timeline asset was created as part of this exploration. The timeline represents the 3 WNBA Championships the Phoenix Mercury have won: 2007, 2009, 2014. It was a slam dunk way to include the best fans in the league, using a transforming dotted X to denote each year.
This timeline X asset saw extensive use throughout the season, and it was featured prominently on the merchandise within the 2024 Rebel Collection.
Below is a carousel graphic I created to highlight the launch of this retail collection.
Rock Textures
One of the things that really grabbed my attention when I first visited Arizona years and years ago was the stark contrast between the desert and the volcanic mountains surrounding Phoenix. With the use of my camera, I captured many photos along dozens of hikes over the years, and after processing these images and converting them to bitmaps, I was able to create additional texture elements for the Rebel Jersey creative campaign.
Rebel Game day graphics
Photo Credits:
Ethan Curtis, Cody Cunningham, Kate Frese, Barry Gossage, Derrick Spencer
