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Designer and Gentleman Nikola Mirotic Case Study
NBA PLAYER
P E R S O N A L B R A N D I N G C A S E S T U D Y

Designer and Gentleman
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Nikola Mirotic Case Study
Table Of
Contents
Introduction
How To Turn A Short Pro-Athlete Career Into A Lifelong One?
What are the two biggest issues with the pro-athlete career?

Lebron James
Apple
Great Examples Of Pro Athletes And Celebrities As Brands
Serena Williams
Tom Brady
Gisele Bundchen
Nikola Mirotic Project
The Get Up. Get Better Story
Approach and Concept
Creating A Personal Brand
Logo
Website
The Hero Is You

When Life Tests You, Stick To Your Beliefs
Beginning
Selected Awards
Crew
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10
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12
14
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3
How To Turn
A Short
Pro-Athlete
Career Into A
Lifelong One?
Become
A Brand.

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What are the two biggest issues with the
pro-athlete career (aside from it being
extremely physically and psychologically
straining)?
1. It is short.
Usually, a pro athlete has a career of 10-15 years.
But prepares for it most of his/her youth and teenage years. While focusing on building skills,
strength, stamina, drafts, contracts … rarely there is any time left for anything else.
And then (if it all falls into place) the professional career starts, with more practice, chasing higher
scores, improving the game, winning tournaments and championships.
With so much time and effort put into sports, it is only logical to guess that it will be your lifetime
calling, right?
Wrong.
Ending a sports career brings lots of changes to it, some are psychological but others are
downright scary with your income going from prolific to being completely cut down. The Final
Whistle reports that the successful transition takes 2-3 years. It has proven itself many times that
you need an exit plan: ‘the morning after pill’ if you will, only applied to the sports career. But the
trick is to plan it way before it happens.
2. You become a public persona.
It is exciting (think fans screaming your name) but it can be very stressful. Once you have a media
presence, your victories, as well as your tears, stop being just your own. People have an eye on
you, they are commenting the things you do, your Instagram or Twitter posts all of a sudden can
become bad advertising in daily papers even if you make a politically incorrect joke.
You are an inspiration for many but also a very fragile entity exposed to the public love as well as
hate. And the sooner you are aware of it, the better.
The secret to a lifelong career is hidden in the solutions to these two problems.

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The secret to a lifelong career is hidden in the solutions to these two problems.
In a short pro-athlete career, you have a strong media presence that you can command. Instead of
just burning bright for a decade or two, if you create a brand, you can do it for the rest of your life,
even when you stop playing sports.
Forbes announced that the brand called Lebron
James is worth some 33.4 million dollars. It is
ofcourse LBJ that you see in the picture, but it is not
him, it is he-as-a-brand. Even if they share the same
face, a brand is different then a person.
Brands have a strategically positioned brand essence, brand image, brand message, brand
promise, ambassadors and a product range.

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If Apple would now start to sell tyres and post trucker-type advertisement on social media, would
you be confused? You probably would.
The reason is that you are used to Apple selling mobile phones, tablets, computers and equipment.
The brand is iconic for the impeccable design, innovation and thinking different within the IT
hardware. Also you are used to a certain design and a message from Apple in their advertising.
Let me illustrate what I mean:
Strong brands have created a recognizable image by being consistent over the years
in what and how they are communicating. Brand image is the space you occupy in the
brains and hearts of your fans.
The worth of LBJ brand is exactly here. What they think, say, do about LBJ is his brand. It is only
happily supported by lucrative deals with other brands who also want to endorse that message.
A great thing about athletes and other media present people is that they can become their own
brand ambassadors. Your face and actions become the face of the you-brand.

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Great Examples Of
Pro Athletes And Celebrities
As Brands

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Serena Williams often uses her branding
as a statement. Aside from being the world’s
top performing tennis player, she is a
philanthropist, speaks out for women rights,
now sits on the board of Survey Monkey,
has her own apparel line Aneres, teaches
tennis MasterClass and is the only woman on
Forbes’ 2017 list of The World’s 100 Highest
Paid Athletes.
His wife is among the top earning
supermodels in the world - all because the
modelling career? No.
The modelling helped, indeed, but Gisele
Bundchen has a couple of very lucrative
businesses that she as a brand endorses
and promotes, and Heavy.com reports
that Gisele makes 128.000$ daily, largely
from ad campaigns. Daily! (you’ve read that
correctly).
And she is not even actively modelling
anymore.
The NFL star Tom Brady plays for the
New England Patriots and due to the
accomplishments on the field, he is
considered to be the greatest quarterbacks
of all time. But is that enough for a lifelong
career? Not really.
Tom Brady has his own method for sustaining
high performance called TB12 with the
supplements, exercises, consulting and
merchandise that you can, ofcourse -
purchase.
Even though there are some reports that not
all the effects are scientifically proven, the
brand seems to be going strong.

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Nikola Mirotic
The
“Get Up.
Get Better”
Story
Nikola Mirotic has decided to share his life story,
experience and the outlook on sports.
Designer & Gentleman team was more than eager to
work with him on this inspiring project.

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Approach and
Concept
We spent time with Nikola and first made sure to get to know Nikola Mirotic ‘the man’ before
meeting the ‘pro athlete’. In his case, this approach proved to be the perfect way to understand him
- his decisions, life choices and beliefs. Beneath this 6 ft 10 in tall Montenegrin power forward there
is an interesting life story that naturally became his brand story as well.
The ‘Nico, suave’ that ecstatic sports commentators shout after Mirotic’s passes, threes, spins
and dunks, is actually a great description of the elegance and confidence in Nikola’s basketball
style. What we have learned is that his secret to this court presence is hard work and modesty.
Also, this is the way he is in person - modest, funny, family guy with friends across continents.
He is a father, as well. So the responsibility to be a great role model is now even grater.
The hero story was born out of a comment of a fan that Nikola got after one of the games, however,
the hero mission stuck with Nikola for years and has never left him.
To be someone’s hero is not a headliner story, it is a promise to yourself to constantly improve and
get up quickly after the downfalls.
Nikola believes that we all can help someone - everyday we can find an opportunity to change
someone’s life, to inspire them and push them forward. That’s the everyday hero stories Niko is
looking for on his website.
If each and every one of us did just one good deed for someone every day, time with the number of
people in your city - how many happier faces that would be? How many more challenges would be
accepted, more exams passed, more mountains climbed and fears overcome. It would be amazing.
And it is possible.
That is why Nico’s website leads you to share your hero stories. Let’s help each other go higher.

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Concentrating Before The
Free Throw Is The Only
Reason To Look Down.
Nikola Mirotic /
Creating a Personal Brand
Nikola’s words may as well be the key to the entire UX of his new branding and the website.

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Before the creation of the logo, the serious homework comes first.
We explore, investigate, learn about what already exists out there, especially in the client’s
industry.
Second part is to research how the client’s story can be told visually and transferred to symbols.
This was a really special client with the strong set of beliefs he lives and plays by and a worldwide
career.
Nikola Mirotic’s ideals were the basis of what was to become his signature sign.
The challenge was to create a logo with level of details, complexity that depicts one person’s
character while at the same time keeping the form clear and minimal.
The process contained many rounds and revisions until the final result was born.
The logo contains a crown, his initials, letters N&M, number one, basket hoop and the half of the
ball that drops in it.
There is a certain resemblance of the ‘coat of arms’ approach to this logo since Nikola comes from
a Montenegrin family and takes pride that he lives by ‘the good old’ virtues of modesty, hard work,
and giving back. In his successful sports career, all the ‘glitter and gold’ comes as a result of the
effort, not as the goal.
He is proud to have won many highly coveted awards, but keeps on actively working on getting
better. Everyday.
The logo in the animated version shows that never-ending process of betterment. In sports, as well
as in life, if you have an ambition to be the best you can be, there is no resting on the laurels.
Logo

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See The Video: Logo Creation

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Starting in Montenegro and loving soccer with all your heart, then all of a sudden growing like a tall
tree and having to stop soccer is already a lot to take in for a young boy.
Nikola Mirotic began basketball training when he was already a good soccer player but had to re-
learn the rules and moves. It was not easy, however, his coach Jadran Vujacic never gave up. In
the Joker club in Podgorica, Nico was roasted to become the future NBA player, of course, he was
not aware of that at the moment. Jadran knew that Nikola will reach great heights (and not just
because he was tall).
There was an innate quality to Nikola - he was not easy to undermine and he never gave up. Later
on, after many life trophies and challenges, and the last one with the Bulls, Nico realized what was
the motto he lived by.
No sugarcoating, no bull - you got to give your all and then tomorrow - do it again. Until it becomes
a good habit. Also, there is another strong driver - if you are on a mission to be a good role model,
you cannot let distractions get you down.
That is how ‘Get up. Get better. Everyday.’ was born.
START
GO UP
AND UP...
Website

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The scroll goes up, and the whole story develops as you go higher, through Nikola’s personal and
professional story, to his message and life moto, and finally to the message aiming at you.
‘The hero is you’ means that you should use the opportunity to help someone and push them up.
Instead of lateral or regular scroll down, we have decided to engage the visitor more and to imprint
the story into the gestures and the overall experience.
Nikola is also very tall and it also serves as a good point for the hero stories - giants are not big
because they are tall, but because what they do.
The website is the perfect way to present - visually and in words, Nikola’s life mission and
basketball philosophy.
Get up.
Get Better.
Everyday.
Voicing the life moto
The Hero
Is You

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WHOSE HERO HAVE
YOU BEEN TODAY?
Whom did you inspire, help or made happier today? did you get up?
Did you help someone get better or happier?
Send your story with pictures or video, this world needs more heroes.
i will be awarding the best hero stories from around the world.
LET ME KNOW!
The Main Call To Action Is Aiming At You:

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Also, When
Life Tests You,
Stick To Your
Beliefs

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Just a few days before the beginning of the season of 2017-2018, Nikola got into a conflict with his
teammate during practice and got injured. He was punched in the face, went unconscious, and had
to get transferred to a hospital. That resulted in a 6 weeks pause from training and games.
The player who punched him got benched for a couple of games.
Nikola had an opportunity to show how a
real professional handles a tricky situation.
The ‘Get up. Get Better.’ philosophy was the
guiding light.

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“What happened between us stays
between us. We are professionals.
Let’s leave that in the past and
focus on the team and our game.”
- Nikola Said.
Numerous articles were published about
the incident. Mirotic did not react. He
did not want to feed the hunger for
sensationalism. Once the fires died out,
both players apologized to each other in
front of the cameras.

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Nikola Mirotic Has Decided To Create
A Strong Online Presence With A
Humanitarian Idea In The Center Of It.
Getting injured or being drawn into an incident is a very tricky point in an athlete’s career.
However, Nikola turned it around. He looked at the bigger picture.
The situation not only tested him, it also proved to be the real life example of what Nikola believes
in. He was preparing a comeback both of and on the basketball court.
And he did it.
Starting to play for Nola and launching the awarded website is just the beginning.

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Selected Awards
Important Notice: this page is editable since the promotion still continues, the new awards will be added accordingly.
SITE OF THE MONTH

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nikomirotic.com/bulls
nikomirotic.com
Team Members: Creative Direction/Logo Design/ UX_UI/StoryBoard: Nikola Vucicevic; Content Creator: Katarina Popovic; Web Developer: Valerija Spasojevic; Front-End: Zoran Rajilic; Photography: Jelena Vucicevic for Elly Elite; Typography: Milos Zlatanovic;
Graphic Designers: Milos Zlatanovic, Miroslav Vujovic, Ivana Grujic; Logo Consultant: Bogdan Vukosavljevic; Video Animator: Milos Stevanovic; Project Manager: Joanna Galic; Social Media Manager: Sanja Sunjevaric

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