NIKE HOME RUN KING BAT

Designed as the trophy for the Perfect Game All-American Classic Home Run King, in collaboration with Kevin Cantrell, this bat was conceived as both a ceremonial object and a densely layered work of image-making. Drawing from the visual language of baseball and old-world typography, the design envelops the entire circumference of the bat, treating it as a continuous surface rather than a series of discrete panels.

At the center of the piece is a custom italicized blackletter wordmark, an intentional departure from the traditionally upright form, introducing speed and forward motion into the letterforms themselves. Surrounding illustration and ornament accumulate across the bat, building visual density through rhythm, repetition, and addition. The collaboration unfolded as an improvisational exchange, with each pass responding to and extending the last, resulting in an object shaped as much by dialogue as by design.

The final artwork was engineered and laser-etched around the bat’s full circumference using a proprietary production process developed by Big Secret, allowing illustration and typography to resolve as a single, continuous form.