NIKE | PAPER BATTLEFIELD | 2009
When a Poster Became a Battlefield / NIKE "PAPER BATTLEFIELD"
This campaign won the Grand Prix in the Design category at Cannes in 2009, and even looking at it now, it's absolutely thrilling. Using silkscreen printing, a technique that goes back to the 10th century, the players themselves made their own posters. That process itself embodied the very essence of competition.
The problem
The brief was to create a recruitment poster for the Nike Basketball League, the most prestigious and competitive league in Hong Kong. For young basketball players, joining this league was a dream, and a chance to show off their skills. So the question wasn't just how to make an announcement poster, but how to capture the spirit of competition that defines the league itself.
The insight
The creative team translated the spirit of competition literally into the poster itself. When they thought about what competition in basketball really is, they realized it's about layering your own play over your opponent's. So the poster became a battlefield, and the randomly overlapping prints became the battle itself. This discovery changed everything.
The idea
They turned images of the top 10 players into silkscreen plates, invited the players themselves to a workshop, and had them print by layering each other's images on top of one another. 350 posters were made by the players' own hands. In other words, these weren't posters made by designers. The players layered their own images over other players, and that act was the competition itself. The printing process became the message. Perfect.
What happened
The campaign won the Grand Prix in the Design category at Cannes Lions, and had already won a D&AD design award the month before. Spots in the Nike Basketball League filled up immediately, and the posters became one of the most sought-after Nike collector's items within the player community. Because the players had created the posters themselves, they meant far more than ordinary posters to them, and the creative process became an exclusive, unique experience shared only by their community. The Cannes jury said it "paid tribute to a technique that has existed since the 10th century," and commented that "it was great that it stayed low-tech," and that it was "full of life, joy, and energy." Rather than technical flash or innovation that crossed categories, they chose simplicity.
Afterthought
What thrills me most is the decision to let the players make it themselves. Normally, a designer makes a cool-looking poster and that's the end of it. But here, the process itself became the experience, became the message, became a memory shared by the community. I feel like I witnessed the moment advertising shifted from something that "communicates" to something that "creates." And connecting a technique that's been around since the 10th century to a basketball league in 2009 — what a sense of style. Old and new, analog and digital, the makers and the audience. A masterpiece that smashed through every boundary.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Grand Prix 2009
