London Lions, one of the UK’s leading professional basketball teams reached out to our publishing counterpart ‘cene Media, to discuss their vision of producing a quarterly print magazine surrounding the culture of basketball in London. The first edition of BASELINE launched at the Lion’s first European Cup home game in October ‘22.

Project Overview

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LONDON LIONS BASKETBALL // Product Identity / Page Layout Design / Publishing

MASTHEAD + PRODUCT IDENTITY

The title named BASELINE brought to the court by London Lions, is the term used for the the boundary at each end of the basketball court that sits behind each hoop. A double meaning to describe the publication's goals of digging into the baseline culture and the creative movers and shakers that surround the sport from the local area and wider city.

‘Tipping off’ with the masthead, we used one of London Lions’ key brand fonts Pano regular and gave it a little extra impact, while maintaining an equal, balanced space between each letter.

Flipping the ‘i’ in Baseline and using the LDN Lions brand colour Pantone Warm Red, we created a visual baseline within the word, while ensuring its legibility to the reader. This also gave a prime spot for the issue number to comfortably sit above.

The approach to the cover was purposefully clean, without headlines allowing focus on the powerful and thought-provoking imagery that will be commissioned to creatives with an interest in basketball.

PAGE DESIGN + LAYOUT

Using white or empty space is crucial within this title, providing a canvas for the powerful imagery throughout.

With impactful stories from some of the most influential people in the game, each page grips attention, feels aspirational and offers an ‘easy read’ for an informative reader experience.

Not using any more than the two brand colours (Black & Pantone Warm Red), creative layout will be driven by the columns, headlines, stand-firsts and quotes.

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Oliver Emery
Senior Vice President of Content at London Lions.

BASELINE is a marker of the Lions intent to embrace the culture around our sport and give a voice to the artists in our community; both locally and within the sport. We’ve chosen to shun the traditional gameday programme, as we continue to shake the cobwebs off the old guard of British Basketball. We want to offer more to our fans in venue - as well as opportunities for the community to engage with us in bars, coffee shops and youth centres across the Boroughs. Baseline is our way to do that, working in tandem with our community projects and basketball programming.

The zine also allows us to give our players a voice, bringing some of their more complex stories to life in a way that is harder across our short-form social media channels. Without a camera in sight, we’ve seen players open up more for written content and we’ve been in awe of their incredible stories on social justice, representation and identity.

The choice to turn to print as part of our content output, whilst others retreat from it, is purposeful and is reflective of our ambitions to create meaningful relationships with new fans. We want our audience to feel our brand identity through the touch of the paper and be able to dip in and out of our culture, as provided by a physical product. The initial reception to BASELINE has been phenomenal and we look forward to continuing to work with Henry Dean (Lead Editor) and the ‘cene team, to bring the art, fashion and community around our sport to life through each episode of BASELINE.

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LAUNCH DAY

BASELINE magazine was launched at the London Lion’s first European Cup home game – a game that made history for British Basketball. The Lions became the first British team to win a European game in 18 years.