The Polish artist, renowned for his editorial and fashion illustration (Including creating the logo and artwork for the Comme De Garcon Play Collection), brings fresh perspective to the league’s franchises.
Reworking 30 designs is no small task. However, for Polish artist Filip Pagowski (known for his work with major newspapers and fashion houses), it was the starting point for his first collaboration with Nike — a re-imagining of each NBA team motiff in his own unique illustrative style.
“The idea behind the project was not to replicate the original or the official logos of each team, but rather come up with something that portrayed the team or the place they are coming from, or both, and to have it done in some fun way,” explains Pagowski.
To tackle the challenge, Pagowski decided on three elements of each team to toy with: the team name, the city it represents and its mascot. While sometimes intertwined, these three aspects allowed the artist space to dive into the history of a given franchise and the facts or associated imagery related to the source of a nickname.
In the early days of hip hop, a trio of graffiti artists from New York known as the Shirt Kings created a following with their custom air brushed t-shirts. In the Eighties, Edwin “Phade” Sacasa, Rafael “Kasheme” Avery, and Clyde “Nike” Harewood began transferring their passion for graffiti from the surface of trains to the surface of t- shirts.
Fabric became their new canvas and soon enough, the Shirt Kings were translating street culture and street art onto clothes, becoming the first to commercialize their graffiti. Some may say this was the birth of the streetwear concept.
Nike Basketball collaborated with Phade, one of the original members to create art for the summer 2017 basketball collection. With the airbrushing and the DIY aesthetic being popular, we wanted to go to the original source to create the most authentic version for our athletes and branded t-shirts.
Nike Basketball x NBA NRG T-Shirt Collection.
2016 NIKE Basketball
This collection looked into the true essence of each player for the fans that obsess their heroes. We looked into the mannerisms, signature moves and celebrations to illustrate more than just the players name and face.
By freeze framing and cropping into these NBA superstars, it’s impossible to not know who each player is even without their faces.
2016 - Nike Basketball
Concept & Art Direction
Houston design house, Pen and Pixel, has blinged out album covers since the early 90’s. Growing up in the Bay Area, I was alway drawn to these covers. During the rush of southern hip hop artists in the 90’s and early 2000’s pen and pixel was everywhere. There style has inspired a lot of my work in the past. So when I was looking for my first collaborator for Special Projects for the 2017 NBA All-Star Game in New Orleans I wanted to go to the source.
We had Pen and Pixel create branded tees and I joined them to create the player tees. An amazing collection that pays homage to the originators.
Created for Lebron James and Kyrie Irving. These tees were worn in the lockeroom after the Cleveland Cavs won their first NBA Championship ever.
Each graphic is inspired by each players signature move combined with a gold ring.
2017 Nike Basketball
Concept and Art Direction
Reimagined trophies that feel weathered and worn to symbolize winning something with grit. Both The Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers come from blue collar cities that are known for work their work ethic.
Illustrations by I Love Dust
UNDRCRWN has been at the forefront of T-shirt design. The ability to take popular culture and sports to tell amazing detailed stories that touch the consumer has been unmatched.
Had multiple t-shirts included in the top 100 t-shirts in streetwear during the 2000’s. Including 2 top 5 picks.
KYRIE IRVING T-SHIRT COLLECTION
SPRING 2018 - NIKE Basketball
Concept & Design
Paper Collage and ink.
Working with Kyrie on his apparel and graphics , he wanted to make sure that we evoked his personal mantra of the time, “Fear is Not Real”. I thought that by taking images and cutting them up and laying over hand drawn text it would create amazing content that could be applied to t-shirts apparel and marketing materials. The beautiful chaos that is Kyrie Irving.
