Billie jean also known as Sam Piyasema is an inventive graphic designer who is based in the UK. In 2004 Billie Jean amazingly worked for the Nike campaign for the celebration of 30 years of Nike basketball shoes. For the campaign he designed traditional yet retro looking trainers, which were a great success and an enormous achievement for him. Billie Jean’s bold drawings were not only inspiring but incredibly creative, his work connected with the younger generation better, which was his targeted audience.
The poster he created ’30 years of Nike Basketball Shoes’ portrayed his ideas and feelings in the last 30 years. To show this he ingeniously to decided to present the poster using sketches of what appears to be his childhood images in relation to Nike. The poster has a very informal appeal to it which not only does it give emphasis to the attraction of the ‘youth’ better but also portrays his personal views and feelings. I noticed how he uses swirls in the poster, to perhaps express his fantasy visually. The use of sharp images can be seen as an aggressive advertisement, however this strong use of aggressive emotion can closely relate to a teenage lifestyle in terms of varied emotions and experience in life. A lot of the images that he drew on his poster appear to be very random, but he intentionally did this to express the mind of a teenager better, which I think he did well. The doodle designs give an impression of a bored teenager sitting in a classroom, which most of us can very much relate to at some point in our life. Interestingly to see that the only colour used in his poster is blue, which expresses a sense of coolness as well as assist in appealing to the youths better. He varies the tone to a darker shade to possibly reveal a more powerful emotion which is a good use of technique.
The main themes being revealed in the creation of the poster was old school basketball as well as the urban lifestyle, this suited the needs of their chosen audience. The presentation overall is exceptionally messy, which expresses the Nike as a tolerant as well as a cool brand. This very much takes us back to the 80’s lifestyle of being free.
When evaluating the poster, it becomes clear that the intended function of it is to celebrate the Nike brand’s development over the past 30 years. This is shown in the context of the centralized trainer.
Billie Jean uses reasonably basic but effective techniques to convey the main theme of the poster, to the public. He creatively uses a basic biro pen to create his sketches. This technique creates a sense of a child like memory, as well as communicates the retro look appealing to the youth. The images also relates to graffiti and the street lifestyle of the youths. The poster promotes basketball and fashion in an effective manner.
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