YONEX ‣ 75th ANNIVERSARY CAMPAIGN

To celebrate an anniversary during a year like 2021 felt like a chance to spread optimism rather than self-congratulatory cheers. Yonex’ founder was famous for his sense of optimism. He believed that “a pinch is a chance”; every set-back presents an opportunity to move forward in a way you hadn’t considered before.

Every morning is a fresh chance to embrace the potential that the day brings. Inspired by this belief, we devised a broad range of communications that all stem from one core idea: Today Is No Ordinary Day.

To celebrate its 75th anniversary, YONEX brought back iconic pieces from the brand’s history. The main source of inspiration were the 70’s and 80’s, when Yonex was experiencing its biggest boom. We tapped into the same era to find inspiration for the campaign’s visual identity.
For the color palette, we used the iconic blue and green of Yonex but with new retro tones and gold accent color.

To serve as the emblem for the campaign, we designed a new logo, taking the triangles and circles of the YONEX logo and transforming them into a celebratory 75. A marque that can now be found across products and communications. ⁠⁠

For the color palette, we used the iconic blue and green of Yonex but with new retro tones and gold accents.

We designed a website that tells the brand story through a series of unordinary days and shows off the anniversary collection.

The lookbook section uses a horizontal scroll to get you through the two retro-inspired collections while the brand-story page is a series of extraordinary days from the brand’s history, which you can flick through like an almanack.

Yonex’s 75th collection was made of two sub-collections: the on-court collection to wear when you play and the off-court you wear outside of the game. We took charge of the off-court collection lookbook photoshoot. While the collection is a lot more casual, we still needed it to be rooted in sports. Our approach was to combine the fun vibes of the 70’s and the world of the stadium (watching a game rather than playing it). Keeping it clean and minimal, we brought in different props to create a stylised version of a stadium scene from the 70’s: retro stadium seats, analog camera, retro pop-corn box and nostalgic drinks from the era. We got the athletes to play with the props to create fun visuals.

Throughout 2021, Yonex re-released iconic pieces from its archives, updated for modern times. In parallel to that on-court collection, we were invited to imagine and design an off-court collection that tells the brand story through lifestyle pieces that can be work more casually.

We designed a stadium jacket as the hero product for the collection. The jacket has been worn since by the world’s leading badminton athletes like Kevin Sanjaya and Viktor Axelsen.
The rest of the collection consisted of t-shirt designs, socks and hats.