Nike – The art of the poster

For my second large project at Wieden & Kennedy I took on a responsibility which was way beyond my skills. We had to create posters for NikePark, a quite wonderful event put on by Nike to create boltholes for kids that were inspired by large international football competitions.

I had never created such a public set of posters, I was far more comfortable with procedural design and the thought of having to make something beautiful terrified me. But I jumped at the chance.

I owe the end result to my support team: John Boiler – John was my Creative Director and he had a passion for posters. He was also one of the calmest, most patient creative minds I've ever known. We sat for many hours poring over the designs, reworking them, re-sketching, coaching.

Team
Marc Shillum – Design and Creative Direction
Ghislain de Villoutreys – Writing
Dave Fikkert – Ontwerpen
Jasper Goodall – Portraits

Immediately after Nike Park there was a project to do a print campaign for Nike Germany. Although these never actually ran, they came to me much more easily than Nike Park.

The Heinrich poster remains one of the simplest things I've ever made, Heinrich's skill was to use both wings and the fact that his name had a sense of reflective symmetry was too good to miss.

They were intended to be made into flags. I liked the idea that Germany could be proud of their flag, proud of their nation. It really felt like a true Footballing power-house was back.