Floating cricket ball meeting rooms, lenticulars telling two sides of the story, immersive abstractions whispering the beautiful details of the game, and the powerful stories of the people who make it happen, both behind and in front of the camera – our environmental branding for Sky Sports HQ has it all.
Sky Sports is a powerful and much loved brand. With a legacy of bold communication originally geared towards a predominantly male audience, the brand has evolved to embrace inclusivity, diversity, and compelling, on camera and behind the scenes stories of competition, resilience – people doing remarkable things.
Our challenge was to bring these layers of narrative out into the open through our creative. Which was a rich backyard to explore along with Sky Sports’ values and their approach – on the ground, in the moment, the technical achievements, the teamwork, the passion, the sports and the history.
Our creative springboard: The Stories Behind the Headlines, allowed us to focus on bringing meaningful moments and interactions to life, through the brand values and the Sky Sports Team. From this we crafted an environment that echoes the team’s ongoing legacy in sporting history – a space where they can enjoy, focus, feel united, and represented.
Our strive for zero waste and sustainable builds teamed us up with our trusted sustainable partner, Beautiful Wonder – specialists in sustainable high-end installations.
Spoiler: the concrete columns aren’t actually concrete, which, despite having some sustainable circularity requires a large amount of CO2 to be manufactured, which of course contributes to global warming. Our columns are made from sustainable MDF and painted with non-toxic paints by skilled scenic artists to appear as concrete.
The vinyls are printed using eco-friendly inks and will be disposed of by converting them into fuel. And as always, our carbon emissions are offset via our partner Ecologi. And as we’re believers in upcycling and social impact for brand legacy, we’ll aim to make sure as many of the build items elements can also have an afterlife where possible.
Catherine van der Heide and Phoebe Wood at Hassell
Jez Clarke at Beautiful Wonder
Ceri Sampson and Sophie Brooks at Sky Creative
David Allen and Dominic McSherry at Sky Spaces
We couldn’t have achieved this without the support and insights from the Sky Sports team, in particular Jonathan Licht and Inga Ruehl, Ben Wickham, Mark Alford, Steve Smith.
