Due to the success of my Bamboo Tokyo Olympic shirts I became connected with a few Olympic athletes through instagram and Naya Tapper was one of them. I began following her, watching her highlight videos and reading about her come up. She had soon scored her 100th score and I felt and athlete of her stature deserved a brand with a symbol as iconic as the "Jumpman" logo.
I began to look through images of Naya playing Rugby; stiff arming her opponents and running rampant all over the field. I wanted a strong silhouette that symbolized her ferocity on the field. I loved the way she leaned when she ran and I wanted to use that in the silhouette, maybe exaggerate it a bit.
After creating her silhouette I moved on to creating an icon using her name/initials. Creating Naya's monogram was a simple process. I started with an idea of what I wanted. I knew I wanted to play with the uppercase and lower case letters and I wanted to use the silhouette inside the monogram as negative space if I could. I wanted to create a symbol that belonged on a page with some of our most iconic logos in pop culture. Along with her monogram I created a "100" logo to commemorate her 100th try scored in Rugby on January 30, 2022.
After I settled on the logo and monogram I began working on mock ups, so she'd get a look at how the logos would look on some of her favorite type of tops, bottoms, and elastic fabric hair ties aka scrunchy's ; that Naya and other female Rugby players used to keep their hair up as they competed.
Once I gathered all of my research and mock up material I had a 45minute video call with Naya Tapper and I presented my brand idea to her. I expressed to her this creativity came from a place of feeling like she needs to be celebrated more and she deserved to be honored and respected like her counterparts. Even though she did like the idea behind the brand and the material I presented to her, she already had an established brand look and design she had already been promoting in the e commerce space.
As a creator I felt as if this could have been a big splash amongst her following to establish a more clean and polished look to her brand as well as creating timeless silhouettes and icons that live on and evolve with her supporters as she grows. I'd still be open to work with Naya or any athlete in the future on branding, I truly enjoyed this process.
