I thought it would be a nice creative exercise to design a video game cover. And who better to grace my hypothetical NBA Live cover than the Black Mamba himself.
Kobe Bryant is my favorite player of all time, having grown up in Southern California during the early 2000s. His legendary work-ethic, flashy footwork, and competitive drive has always been a source of inspiration for myself.
The goal was to design something that felt realistic, while also allowing myself the creative flexibility to explore visual ideas that were vastly different than my work at DSI.
I liked the idea of Kobe jumping through the logo, as opposed to simply placed underneath it as is typical of game covers. For the background, I wanted to use snake imagery to invoke Kobe's Black Mamba nickname. An alternative idea was to pursue something closer to gold foil - fitting of the Lakers' team identity of purple-and-gold. Merging the two approaches felt like the right choice
“You don’t want to jump into something if you’re not passionate about it.” - Kobe
