Three cities. One draft night.

The NBA Draft is one night, and the talk around it runs for weeks. In June 2025, JD Sports took the Draft to the street with billboards in New York, Dallas and Baltimore. We made them.

A billboard gets a glance

A billboard is read in a glance, from a car or across a street. It cannot explain itself. It has to land one idea, one image and one name, at a size where every mistake shows. That is why out of home is a design discipline first and a media buy second.

Sport belongs on the street

Big sports nights happen in public. Fans talk about the Draft at work, on the train and with friends long before the first pick. A board on the street joins that conversation where people already are. For a retailer, it also puts the brand in front of people in the cities where its stores are.

One idea, three cities

Running a board in three cities is a design problem before it is a media problem. The idea has to hold in every market on the plan. So we build the system first: the idea, the type, the image and the rules for how they sit together at every size.

When the system is right, a new city or a new placement is a layout job, not a new campaign. The board in one city and the board in the next read as the same brand, the same moment and the same voice.

How our Design work runs

• Concept: find the idea and the look the system grows from
• Build the system: identity, key art and 3D models
• Apply it everywhere: packaging, billboards, ads, social and signage
• Hand over: files, guides and motion toolkits

From the board to the feed

A billboard is also a photo. People stop and shoot the boards they like, and brands post them. Designing for out of home means designing for the phone too: the board has to read in a street frame and in a vertical crop. A board that only works at full size has done half its job.

Signs work the same way

Before you book the media

Five checks to run before any board goes to print.

• Write the idea in one line. If it needs two, it is not a billboard yet.
• Design at full size, then check it small. Both have to work.
• Build one system that holds in every city on the plan.
• Make a street version for social, so the board lives online too.
• Hand your team the files and the rules, so every new placement matches.

The billboards came out of two years of store launches and activations for JD Sports, including the rebrand from Finish Line to JD Sports, and 354 films delivered since 2023.

Planning out of home for a launch or a moment? Book a call. We will help you find the one line and the image that carries it.