NFL DRAFT ‘22
style guide design, fabrication, and application
NFL Draft ‘22 is the league’s #2 event behind the Super Bowl. The pandemic once again presented us with some interesting challenges. The ‘20 Draft was designed to be in Vegas, but quickly needed to shift to an online event. Two years later we are back in Vegas and we were asked to reimagine the unused style guide in a brand new, yet familar way. A task easier said than done! We leaned hard into the electric lights of Vegas, and this idea of spectical and illusion that’s unique to the city. It yielded itself to some fun design elements, patterns, a full M.C. Escher style tessilation, and of course playing cards.
Playing Cards were another crazy beast. They are a no brainer for a place like Vegas. The kicker about Draft is that it’s league wide so, any idea you have you also need to multiply it by 32, to make sure you have all teams represented. I worked with another illustrator to develop the mascot based Ace of Spades for each team, the rest of the suits were up to me to fill out. I chose Kings as prospects, Queens and Jacks as coaches, and refs.
Neon Vector Logos are the last main piece of the Vegas puzzle. Once I worked out the main logo, and proved to myself vector neon was doable, everything else just fell into place. It was incredibly fulfilling to get to see them blown up large and how well they printed across the board!
