THE BOOK

Our first product titled BUCKETS was a coffee table book that documented our neighborhood hoop findings over the course of 3+ years. 

Beginning in 2017, we were already photographing our favorite hoops in our city of Portland, Oregon, and the project couldn’t have happened in a more organic way. Combining our love of basketball with our skills in design and photography — we had a goal to create an ode to our city that offered others a unique view of our hometown.

TRUST THE PROCESS

Zigzagging through countless neighborhoods, we documented over 350 basketball hoops in Portland over the course of 3 years. Some we found organically through walks, runs, drives, and even from friends shooting us location pins. 

We held off on capturing certain hoops until it was the perfect season to do so (ex: hoops surrounded by particular foliage/trees that would pop in the Spring or Fall).

Looking at all the photos we collected, patterns and pairings emerged that led to the four sections of the book:

Place: Hoops defined by their unique placements, environments, or local nods to the city.

Color: Hoops that pop through the colors of their details, homes, or natural surroundings.

Shape: Hoops characterized by distinct or common shapes.

Texture: Hoops with a story you can feel by their age, material, or backboard prints.

PACKAGING

Prepping for launch, we designed packaging that acted as both a unique gift box and a celebration for the completion of the project. 

Taking inspiration from the tradition of college basketball teams cutting down the net after winning a national championship, we brought that same act of celebration to the unboxing of our book.

The box included a sticker wrap with a net graphic that the recipient would cut through in order to open the box.

We paired this moment with a social media push via our hashtag #CUTTHENET, where buyers of the book reposted their unboxings by cutting the net on their individual packages.