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Project: All-Star Inspired Design
Collaborator: Marvin King
Client: Self-initiated
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Bringing together some of top players in league on the Eastern and Western conference to ball out for the All Star trophy! Marvin and I have put together this design to highlight the starters of the 2014 All Star game. These are some of the most explosive players to watch in the league and we’re excited to craft this design for the occasion.
This year, the All-Star game will take place in New Orleans, which influence heavily on the aesthetics of jersey and logo with its signature symbol—fluer-de-lis.
[su_heading]Jersey[/su_heading]
Before I begin designing each distinctive characters, I’d focus on the jersey, or whichever item that all the characters would share. This year for All-Star, the players would be rocking the winter jerseys (with the sleeves). I personally think it’s absolutely hideous, both in terms of form and design. I almost threw up on myself digitizing these.
Since the aesthetics of the characters are simple, I’d trim down the details to the bare minimal:
A few key elements from the jerseys are: colors, chest brand mark, sleeves, collars, and side stripes.
Look like soccer jerseys to me. Dammit, NBA. 
[su_heading]Players[/su_heading]
This is the critical part of the design process. We chose the starters from both Eastern and Western conference as the center piece for this set of design. They’re the best of the best, each packed with a truck load of die hard fans. There’s no fucking around, each player is crucial to the success of this design and the safety of my life.
For every single design that I do, the first stage is always research. Here I take Durant as an example: 
To nail a caricature, I have to pay close attention to all the details of the character. Aside from google searching the person’s latest images, a helpful tip is by looking at fellow artists’s interpretation of the characters. Most of the time, they’d already sum up the signature features of the character and amplify them in their drawings. Although, the style isn’t the same, you’d get a general gist of where to focus to capture the essence.
I’ve watched a dozen videos to take a more dynamic look at the players. and for my own pleasure. Dyam, Durant.
Now, more specifically, on where to look:
Facial structure. Eyes. Eyebrows. Facial hair. Hair. Shape of nostrils, ears…etc.
Then, after about 4-8 rounds of tweaks and adjustments…
Here it is. The caricature will not be exactly the same, and that’s the fun of it. It’s the way you see the individual, and hopefully, the viewers can appreciate not only the resemblance, but the unique illustrative styling, too.
Couple of my favorites:
I got Lebron DOWN, son.
[su_heading]Full Set[/su_heading]
The West:
Here we have: Stephen Curry, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, Blake Griffin, and Kevin Love.
The East:
Kyrie Irving, Dwyane Wade, Lebron James, Paul George, and Carmelo Anthony.
[su_heading]Back Logo & Neck Labels[/su_heading]
Marvin and I are big on details. For all the collaborations we’ve done in the past, there was a symbolic and relevant icon for the back of each item. Marvin’s usually the man behind the back logos & neck labels. This time’s no differ.
Draft one:
Due to printing constraints, we’d stick with a single color.
Further, we wanted to adding elements that ties in with the theme of this year—New Orleans:
After a dozen mods, we ended with this:
[su_heading]Placements[/su_heading]
Considering that the game is more for the love and passion for basketball than rivalry, we decided to place all players onto a single shirt to celebrate the occasion.
Available in both crews and t-shirts: 
[su_heading]Final[/su_heading]
The items are now available to pre-order here.
Limited time only, pre-order ends on 2/2/14 11:59PM.
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