It takes Mad Love to be a female athlete. More than basketball, this is about championing the ones who play, despite the world against them.
Priya Mistry, Designer | Alex Boland, ACD | Anna Cumyn, Art Director | Sean Ngo, Copywriter
Jeffrey Da Silver, ECD | Andrea Gustafson, CD
Full Mad Love team from Sid Lee
Canada Basketball and MLSE approached us to create a unique brand identity for the nation to rally behind Canadian Women’s basketball with a clear intention to elevate basketball relevance, raise awareness and inspire the next generation of female athletes. We gave them a striking visual platform, which not only celebrated all female athletes but showcased the resilience, the grit and the passion that is womanhood.
On March 8 2021, for International Women’s Day, Canada Basketball launched the integrated campaign, leading with the film inspired by conversations with female athletes showcasing the undying passion they have for the game.
Historically overshadowed by men’s basketball, Mad Love aimed to demonstrate the strength and determination of women in basketball despite this. With powerful, bold, and emotionally impactful imagery, this iconic campaign successfully created a shift in culture, encouraging people to show mad love and support those who play for something bigger.
Publications:
Canada Basketball launches Mad Love to recognize all women
Canada Basketball says it takes Mad Love
With 'Mad Love', Canada Basketball showcases the dedication of women in sports
Behind the scenes at the shoot in Chile.
Collaboration with Soft Citizen
Visual Identity:
It all started with the letters.
I was inspired by hand-written letters we received from the Canadian women’s basketball team. I wanted this platform to showcase the authentic voices of the people behind it so I used letters from athletes, partners and fans in the visual identity itself. The passion that this community we were cultivating had was unignorable and came to life in their unfiltered letters written in their own hand.
“The greatest female athletes have persevered over adversity with mad love, rising above their circumstances with conviction. But, for every professional female athlete, many women never get an equal opportunity to play a fair game. It’s time to change the rules so that every girl with a love for the game can play without prejudice, injustice or inequality.”
— Kia Nurse, WNBA all-star and member of Canada’s senior women’s national team
Tone
We were making a statement in women’s sports with our message and our visual identity had to do the same.
We needed to be bold, provocative, thoughtful and emotionally impactful. We visualized a progressive attitude across multiple sports, told personal stories, and provoked change. We wanted to amplify the community through the design, so all female athlete’s voices and their supporters felt powerful and heard.
Logo
Mad Love is made by the people behind it. We ask partners, athletes, fans and supporters to sign Mad Love in their own personal hand-writing as a symbol of showing support Canada Basketball’s mission.
Typography
We wanted our type to be as provocative and unapologetic as possible. We went with Druk Condensed Super, to create extreme headlines which would always draw the eye, and complimented with a warm and human sans-serif GT Pressura which was inspired by the gesture of ink spreading under pressure of metal type, but didn’t clash with our Mad Love hand-written signatures.
Colour
We wanted to be bold and loud with a minimal and striking colour palette. We used black and white for it’s high contrast when paired with our typeface Druk and our Mad Love red was sampled from the Canada flag itself.
Messaging
We wanted our headlines to be short and impactful, playing with double entendres which were gender bending. These contrasted well with the emotional and thought provoking letters we paired with them with.
Swag & Merch Design
Stephen McCarley, Art Director | Priya Mistry, Designer
“It’s that grit, that sweat, that falling down and getting back up, so we said we were going to do that for women, finally a platform showcasing the good, the bad, the perseverance and adversity that goes into having ‘Mad Love’, playing a game that no one watches.”
— Priya Mistry, Designer. With ‘Mad Love,’ Canada Basketball showcases the dedication of women in sports
