Storming the Squash Court with Effective Design

The J.P. Morgan Tournaments of Champions (ToC) is an international squash tournament held in New York. It is known as the world's grandest squash event and is held annually inside the majestic Grand Central Terminal in New York City. It is an extremely large event in the Squash world and is leveraged by brands from around the world for exposure. For the 2016 edition, DBC branded the event, representing the first major identity shift in years.

ToC, as all event design does, needed a large range of collateral designed. From the sponsorship deck before, to the event program during and in addition awards, coupons, posters, tickets, invites, badges and advertisements.

Our vision was to show the magnitude of having Squash's brightest stars on its grandest stage, and there was no better way to do that than to immortalize these athletes as constellations.

After a lot of research and brainstorming dbc decided to focus the branding on the magnificent ceiling of the Grand Central Terminal. We wanted to create branding that reflected something larger than life and draw on the key aspects of the ceiling mural. We used the color palette of emerald and gold, giving the branded material a royal and sophisticated feel, reflecting the prestige and heritage of ToC. We took the constellation imagery from the ceiling design and re-worked it into the outline of squash players to make the branding relevant to the event. 

We took charge of all sourcing and production for the event and selected the amazing printers at Timely Press here in Manhattan to do all the printing, giving us a Quality Assurance advantage you can't see with online printing. During the tournament, a player's party took place, and we gave it it's own look and feel, using letterpress for corporate invitations. We also custom made a large poster which was used to award the retiring Amr Shabana at the player's party. 

The brand identity was a hit throughout the entire event with a great response from the athletes, fans and all participants. The trading cards we game planned turn the event into a scavenger hunt to get the PSA Top 16 men and women to autograph the cards. We even had some attendees request the artwork as mementos of the event. With this, we're looking forward to ToC 2017, which will be the 20th Anniversary of ToC in Grand Central Terminal.