Selected work / 05Creative direction & design

NIKE NBO

A sneaker concept inspired by Nairobi

A personal concept for a Nike shoe and campaign inspired by Nairobi. We used the green and yellow of Kanjo uniforms as the starting point for the shoe, campaign artwork and a short film.

Client: Personal Project
Year: 2024
Role: Creative Direction, Design, Video Direction
Deliverables: Moodboards, campaign concepts, project video

Wide Nike NBO campaign artwork showing the full sneaker lineup on a stage set

The motivation

A personal tribute to Nairobi.

The project began with a familiar Nairobi reference: the green and yellow uniforms worn by City County staff, often called Kanjo. We wanted to see how those colours could give a shoe a clear connection to the city.

The approach

Developing a campaign from the shoe’s colours

We collected visual references, designed campaign artwork and made a short film to explore how the idea could work beyond the shoe itself.

Disciplines

Creative direction, brand design, motion design, video direction

Team

Dicky Jr (concept, design, direction), Shawna Kyalo (Art Direction), Romy Nawab (Art Direction), ARK crew

Timeline

Self-initiated exploration (2024)

Nairobi Palette

The green and yellow core tones nod to Nairobi City County crews and anchor the wider set of supporting accents used across the concept visuals.

Nike NBO poster featuring a close-up detail of the sneaker tooling — Macro storytelling calls out sneaker tooling and materials, highlighting the craft behind the colourway.

Poster variation showing a green Nike NBO badge on a neutral backdrop — Edition badge artwork anchoring the visual system with stitched details and muted canvas tones.

Poster variation highlighting Nike NBO typography with bold diagonal framing — Headline treatments lean into Nairobi matatu lettering cues, set against tactile fabric textures.

Nike NBO sneaker on a green ledge in sunlight — The colourway in a sunlit product image.

Pair of Nike NBO sneakers against a blue sky — A closer look at the shoe from two angles.

Nike NBO sneakers worn on a city curb — The shoe worn on the street.

Bringing it together

Building a campaign around Nairobi

The Kanjo-inspired palette gave the project a clear starting point. Typography, textures, poster compositions and motion extended that reference into a wider campaign concept, exploring how the same Nairobi character could hold together across different formats.

The project brought design and direction into one exercise: imagining both the product story and the way someone might encounter it. The result is a self-initiated tribute to the city, expressed through campaign artwork and a project film.

My contribution: Concept, design, creative direction and video direction.
Collaboration: Shawna Kyalo and Romy Nawab — art direction, with the ARK crew.
Project: Independent concept · 2024.

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