Nike’s World Junior Hockey Championship pin

The recent IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship was a bad one for Team Canada, but pretty good for Vancouver art director and illustrator artist Carson Ting.

He was hired by Momentum’s Raul Garcia, an old colleague from his time in Toronto, to design the event’s special commemorative pin for longtime sponsor Nike.

It was a quick turnaround project, with Ting given less than a week to submit concepts to Momentum for client approval. Ting, though, didn’t hesitate: “I was slammed but I said ‘Yes, whatever it takes I will make it happen,’” he said. Besides, Ting likes tight deadlines. “You have energy and passion for the entire thing,” he said.

We asked Ting to talk us through the creation process . He was good enough to open up his sketch book and share.

The ask: Incorporate the ‘Just Do It’ tagline and the iconic swoosh, while also visually communicating Vancouver. There were some other suggestions to be included, but with a one-inch canvas to work with, Ting knew he had to simplify.

Variety: Because of the tight timeline, Ting knew he needed to provide lots of options. “I was trying a lot of different ideas, a bit of everything because I couldn’t afford to not hit within the range of what they wanted.” He submitted 11 different concepts, some of which you can see below.

A goalie: Ting was eventually told that Nike didn’t want a skater, but a goalie was okay. That was fine with him. “Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to be a hockey goalie (Pelle Lindbergh from the Philadelphia Flyers was my childhood hero) so it was only natural for me to pick a goalie.”

The Skyline: They really liked the skyline and they wanted that to be prominent. “I also liked the idea of a goalie standing in front of a Vancouver skyline and defending it,” he said.

David Brown