CSM seek to capture the raw energy of truly great, sporting moments for Journey To Greatness

Second up on today’s profiles of UAL graduates taking up the challenge set by Nike to interpret the their design brief, Journey To Greatness, is the reputable Central St Martins…

Over the course of the project the graduates learned a great deal about the hard graft, the months and years of total, unswerving commitment that goes into becoming a top athlete but for the CSM team it was still striking how much of the concept of greatness came down to moments. And they realised that even though this moment happens on a track, court or pitch, the moment itself is contextualised but not contained by these parameters – the markings are fixed, the things that happen within it anything but.

“A combination of these geometric markings, and the non permanent imprints created within, embody what we see as the journey to greatness. True greatness is bound by nothing,” they say.

“We had these two elements of a concept, these geometric markings and the passing moments that occur within. We were aiming to visualise the raw energy of sport, exploding out of these lines.”

At one of London’s most famous boxing clubs, the group experimented with various ways of making an image which they wanted to be abstract but communicative. Shooting in the kind of venue where sporting dreams are actually made (and broken) added a depth to their piece, by going out of their comfort zone they immersed themselves in the very world they were trying to understand. With many great shots to choose from, the challenge was to agree on which one encapsulated everything they had seen, heard and done.

“I think we had about three hundred shots that we edited down to just three. We were keen for the design to be quite abstract as well as being universal, rather than being targeted at one sport.

“I don’t think we could be happier with the finished piece. It nails everything we were trying to achieve.”

It certainly does – with its chalk-spattered texture it distills a superb amount of dynamism into a single still, resonant of the collision of order with chaos, preparation with moment.

All project photography by Ryan Hopkinson and project films by Andrew Telling. This article was produced in conjunction with Nike.