Purcell is an odd-shaped building. Unlike a lot of similar venues, there are seats behind each basket that require special platforms. These platforms mean we have to use smaller stanchions to hold up the hoops, and that these stations have to be pushed closer to the baseline. The stanchion kind of pushes into the space that many other programs get to use to present a full baseline branding element. In the past, Notre Dame has addressed this issue by splitting up the words "Notre" and "Dame" with a big empty space gap between them.

Our final design is inspired by newer trends in NBA court design with the primary Notre Dame branding smaller, and oriented on only one side of the basket. This also takes advantage of our broadcast camera placements, which are closer to the court and lower in the stands. When watching one of our broadcasts, it's striking how infrequently the forecourt side of the baseline even shows up in the shot.

The first step of the process was to look at the context in which we were designing. To do that, we pulled images of every Power 5 school court design and all NBA current court designs and built out a library of research images. Then I started on rough sketches in Procreate. Rough sketches try to meet two goals: clearly present an idea with as much design as necessary, but don't waste time. (These are roughs, after all.)

We reviewed all the concepts, met with key stakeholders and listened to their feedback, and then picked the few concepts that held the most promise for refinement and tighter final presentation to the Athletic Director.