Time is a marker by which so many things are measured, in sport and in life. How long a task takes. How many reps in a minute. How many calls, meetings, appointments packed into a day. It’s easy to get caught up in the counting—time spent and time saved. So easy that you can forget why you do it all in the first place. We must work hard to recall our intention and realize what makes every moment so meaningful. Every moment is more valuable when you Remember Your Why. For Candace Parker, it all comes down to one thing: The people she loves most and who love her. Her kids.
Our team had the opportunity to work with a pinnacle talent on and off the court in Candace. She is an amazing basketball player but she is also a wonderful and loving mom. This made her the perfect choice to be the face of our yearly Mother’s Day campaign and she was gracious enough to allow us to also work with her whole family. Her wife Anya, also a professional athlete, joined us on set along with children Laylaa and Airr to create some wonderful and natural photos. This project required a lot of pivoting to work around travel and product delays caused by massive snowstorms but at the end of the day, this was a huge win for our department in pushing to include our athlete partners in more consumer-facing creative.
I art directed the campaign from concept to file delivery and my responsibilities on the project included:
• Led creative concepting
• Presenting concept & design directions to stakeholders
• Building & maintaining direction, production & ROS decks
• Directing photography and retouching
• Directing design of on-site, social and paid-media deliverables
Studio A team members:
• Sr. Art Director - Craig Skinner
• Sr. Copywriter - Zoe Ward
• Sr. Project Manager - Morgen Lennox
• Designers - Chris Barnes & Elisa Cox
• Sr. Producer - Chelsea Noonan
Production partners:
• Photographer - Sage East
• Photo Assistants - Byron Nickleberry, Dom Ellis & Dominic Escalante
• Wardrobe Stylists - Jourdan Kadow & Madeline Strauss 
• Art Department - Honor Hamilton & Denis Fagundes
• HMU - Hadeel Sittu, Kate Kats & Mina Smith
• Production Companies - Half Court Studio & Vacation Theory