Buckets & Borders is a Canadian non-profit organization dedicated to improving communities and bringing people together through basketball. To date, the organization has completed 27 outdoor court restorations across Canada and internationally, surpassing its original goal of completing 25 courts by 2025. Each revitalized space transforms an underutilized court into a vibrant, welcoming environment that reflects the identity, culture, and pride of its surrounding community.
As a founding creative partner and Design Lead, I have helped shape and steward the Buckets & Borders brand as it has grown nationally. My role spans brand identity development, apparel, campaign assets, and environmental graphics that support each court unveiling and long-term activation. While I am not the mural artist for every project, I work closely with collaborating artists to refine and vectorize their artwork, preparing production-ready files that ensure designs are accurately scaled and executed on full-size courts.
Beyond the playing surface, I design the supporting signage systems that live on-site, including court identifiers, artist features, and partner recognition panels. The visual system is built to be bold, flexible, and instantly recognizable, allowing each court to feel locally rooted while remaining unmistakably Buckets & Borders. Together, the work reflects a shared belief that basketball can create connection, pride, and lasting impact far beyond the game itself.
While the original Buckets & Borders logo was largely explored digitally in 2017, the brand’s evolution has been shaped through years of collaboration across court restorations, partnerships, and community initiatives. As the organization expanded, new sub-marks, campaign identities, and partner integrations emerged, many beginning with hand-drawn exploration before being refined into scalable, production-ready assets. These ongoing developments established a flexible visual language rooted in basketball geometry, bold colour, and structural clarity, allowing the brand to grow confidently while remaining cohesive and instantly recognizable.
Set against a growing portfolio of 27 completed outdoor courts, the Buckets & Borders wordmark was designed to be strong, athletic, and built to last. The primary typeface blends a sporty structure with subtle retro influence, referencing the heritage of the game while maintaining a modern edge. A custom ampersand adds a unique signature to the system, ensuring the mark remains unmistakably B&B wherever it appears. Bold, legible, and highly adaptable, the wordmark anchors the brand across physical courts, environmental graphics, apparel, and digital platforms.
As Buckets & Borders expanded across cities and provinces (and even into San Pancho, Mexico), each court restoration was given its own project mark. While every location carries a unique name and identity, the sub-logos follow a consistent typographic framework rooted in the core brand system. The classic wave-inflected wordmark anchors each design, paired with a project-specific name and a colour drawn directly from the court’s painted surface. Though some initiatives introduced alternate marks for special moments, these primary project cards maintain cohesion across the growing network of courts, reinforcing recognition while allowing each space to feel locally distinct.
Beyond project marks, the brand system was built to be adaptable and layered. A variety of logo applications were developed, including full-colour, single-colour, and stroked versions for environmental, apparel, and digital use, along with the 25 by 25 initiative mark celebrating the organization’s milestone goal. The visual ecosystem also extends into storytelling through the Chain Linked content series, which explores the cultural connections surrounding the court. Inspired by the pattern of the chain link fence, the series highlights artists, organizers, mentors, and community builders whose stories intersect through basketball, reinforcing the belief that the game connects far beyond the painted lines.
The Buckets & Borders identity is built on a bold, adaptable design system designed to perform across courts, communities, and content. Typography is led by Refrigerator Deluxe, selected for its tall, confident presence and subtle retro character. Its condensed proportions and sporty energy give the brand momentum and attitude while remaining highly legible across large-scale environmental graphics, apparel, and digital applications. Inter serves as the supporting typeface, bringing clarity and balance to body copy, and long-form storytelling, ensuring the identity remains clean and functional alongside its expressive headline voice.
The colour palette is intentionally bright, energetic, and unmistakable. Hoop Blue, Triple Threat Teal, Rim Red, and Buzzer Yellow form the brand’s core spectrum, reflecting the vibrancy of painted courts and the culture surrounding the game. These are grounded by Asphalt, a rich black that provides structure and contrast, and Mesh Net, a clean off-white that introduces lightness and flexibility. Together, the typography and colour system create an identity that feels athletic, playful, and community-driven, built to scale from a single court to a national movement.
Working with Buckets & Borders continues to be one of the most meaningful parts of my practice. From shaping the brand to occasionally helping roll paint on new courts, it’s deeply rewarding to see ideas move from screen to asphalt and into the heart of a community.