A new magazine where creativity can turn even the most indifferent sports fan around

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My knowledge of basketball is very, very limited. In fact, it’s limited to watching Space Jam when I was nine, and a brief stint playing for my school netball team until they realised I was only really good for making conversation with the opposing team and eating Ritz crackers on the coach. And netball isn’t even that close to basketball. So with this utter disinterest, it was a shock to find an online magazine about basketball so thoroughly enjoyable.

The approach Court magazine takes to bringing the sport that spawned the “slam dunk” is very much a creative one, working with a superbly talented cast of photographers, illustrators, artists and writers to create features as much about aesthetics as sport. In its debut full issue, features include a wonderfully cute and surreal series of clay heads created by illustrator and sculptor William Edmonds, representing players for the mag’s Hall of Fame.

Elsewhere, former It’s Nice That assistant editor Maisie Skidmore (who also edits Court) has penned a piece about women’s basketball – “radically more exciting than the men’s [game]” – with some gorgeous monochrome photographs of some fierce looking ladies shot by Jake Green.

“We wanted to appeal to people who have no idea about basketball and dedicated fans. The stories about things like communities, just happen to be around basketball.”

Louis Bennett

It’s features like these that exemplify the magazine’s founders Louis Bennett and Callum Green’s desire to make a publication that appealed on two levels: to both the casual reader interested in imagery and stories, and those who are devotees of the sport. “I think it comes from collaborating with the right people and commissioning people we know will get something that works for someone who has no idea and also dedicated fans,” says Callum. Louis adds: “That level of appeal comes from making stories that aren’t about stats or sport, but about things like communities, which just happen to be about basketball.”

The idea for Court was born when Callum and Louis were at Buckinghamshire University studying graphic arts together. Many nights were spent staying up working into the wee hours, while watching NBA matches. In that way, Louis found his passion for basketball passed on from Callum (who in the interest of full disclosure, works as a creative at our sister agency INT Works). He had grown up obsessed with basketball, and in turn the fashion, aesthetic and culture that came with it.

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Will Edmonds: Court Hall of Fame heads

Louis, who designed the Court website, says that it was this distinctive visual approach that informed the look of the site itself. They commissioned Kia Tasbihgou to design a typeface that reflected the oversized tropes of basketball culture – all tall sportsmen and huge vests – but that also had an English feel to it.

“The big consideration with the site design was displaying content as best as possible, so the images had to be as big as possible and constantly present as you’re scrolling,” Louis explains. “Kia’s big, bold typography dominates, and is a reference to basketball culture. The players that have big long names have the words crunched up on the back of their vests, so it reflects that too.”

The result is the statesman-like typeface standing proud across the homepage, backed with full-bleed imagery that changes as users scroll across each feature. The idea of that functionality was to give the sense of scrolling through a physical magazine. Callum says: “There are so many lovely things about a print magazine that we wanted to keep." Louis adds: “That’s why the design is quite lairy in places and a bit odd. In the articles themselves the design shouldn’t be saying anything – it’s all about the content.”

"Big, bold typography dominates, and is a reference to basketball culture. All the design elements are inspired by it"

Callum Green

The photography across the entire publication is superb, showing other sides to the sport we rarely hear about: the emotions, the camaraderie, the teams that triumph over adversity to make the most hostile of environments into fertile grounds for playing. The Court founders believe that basketball in particular is a sport that lends itself to showcasing the character and the theatre behind the technicalities of playing the game. “In football everyone’s a bit of a wet wipe, they’re all so PR trained,” says Callum. “There’s a culture behind it.”

According to Callum, one of the best things about putting Court together was being constantly surprised by how many creatives were as passionate about basketball as he was. One such happy surprise was the case of illustrator and animator Isabel Barford, who created a beautiful monochrome moving image story about Lisa Leslie, “the first player to dunk in the WNBA.” The sensitive line work and subtlety of the aesthetic is against everything we’d have associated with basketball, but it works – and it works to challenge the ideas we think we have about the sport.

Court is entirely self-funded by its founders, and they’ve been thrilled to see how those they collaborated with were “willing to go the extra mile, as it’s something they love.” So what’s the ultimate goal of the mag? “Our mission is to spread basketball as wide as we can in the UK,” says Court. “The next issue might be a comic or a poster issue or a game… if you want to change basketball in this country you have to think like that.”

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Alice Tye: Lakers on a Yacht

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Emily Maye: Venice Beach League

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Emily Maye: Venice Beach League

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William Edmonds: Court Hall of Fame heads

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Left

William Edmonds: Court Hall of Fame heads

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William Cooper Mitchell: The Ballards

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William Cooper Mitchell: The Ballards

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About the Author

Emily Gosling

Emily joined It’s Nice That as Online Editor in the summer of 2014 after four years at Design Week. She is particularly interested in graphic design, branding and music. After working It's Nice That as both Online Editor and Deputy Editor, Emily left the company in 2016.

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