Overview:
The NBA Rising Stars Invitational brings together some of the best under-18 basketball teams from across Asia-Pacific, giving the next generation of players the opportunity to compete on an international stage.
With tournaments held in Singapore and Japan, and basketball icons including Jeremy Lin and Lauren Jackson involved in the event, the NBA tasked Sport Design Australia with creating a complete visual identity that could give Rising Stars a recognisable brand of its own.
The identity needed to connect with a young audience, feel at home alongside the wider NBA brand and work across everything from digital and social through to merchandise, venue branding and the court itself.
Challenge:
Rising Stars sits in an interesting position. It needed the credibility and quality you'd expect from an NBA event, but simply making it look like another NBA property would miss the opportunity to create something younger players could feel was their own.
The audience was younger, the energy was different and the focus was firmly on the next generation of basketball talent.
It also needed to work internationally. With events across Singapore and Japan, and the potential for the tournament to continue growing, the identity couldn't rely too heavily on one location or culture. It needed a visual language that could travel.
The challenge was finding that balance - distinctly Rising Stars, unmistakably basketball and still comfortable living within the wider NBA world.
Solution:
We built the Rising Stars identity from the ground up, creating a bold and energetic visual system around the ambition and excitement of young players getting their first taste of international basketball.
Rather than trying to replicate the look of other NBA properties, we gave Rising Stars its own personality through a dedicated colour palette, typography, graphic devices, photography treatments and flexible compositions that could shift depending on the moment.
The system was designed with movement and energy in mind, allowing creative to feel expressive and youthful without losing the structure and polish expected of an NBA event.
Just as importantly, we thought about how the identity would behave beyond a social post or hero graphic.
From digital and marketing assets through to player uniforms, merchandise, venue signage and on-court applications, each part of the system needed to feel connected while working within very different spaces and formats.
This gave the NBA a flexible visual toolkit that could move between markets, teams and applications while keeping Rising Stars recognisable wherever the tournament appeared.
Outcome:
The finished identity gave the NBA Rising Stars Invitational a distinct visual presence of its own while still feeling at home within the wider NBA brand.
Across Singapore and Japan, the system came to life throughout the full event experience - from the content players and fans saw before the tournament through to the branding, merchandise and court environment they encountered once they arrived.
More importantly, the NBA now had a visual platform that wasn't tied to a single event or location. The system was built with enough flexibility to adapt as Rising Stars moves between markets, welcomes new teams and continues to grow.
For a tournament centred around the next generation of basketball, the identity gave Rising Stars something it could build on for the future.
