NBA All Star Weekend | by Alice Lee

Interactive LED Basketball Court

NBA All-Star Weekend Court

For the 2025 NBA All-Star Weekend, the NBA and AT&T teamed up to produce a series of interactive slam dunk courts. I was honored to be the artist chosen to illustrate the basketball court representing San Francisco.

My court features a dreamy whale floating above the bay with the Golden Gate bridge in the distance. In the foreground, we have my stargirl character reaching out, sending up her wishes to the sky. With fog rolling in in the distance and native poppy wildflowers blooming on the hill, it reminds me so much of this city that I love.

The court was installed via massive interactive LED screens, and whenever the participants successfully dunked the entire court would happily animate in response. As such, my idea was that incorporating this floating whale in the sky would give the courts such a lovely dreamy feeling, as though the participants were flying over the bay as they dunked.

Soraya Fouladi

A thrill to see my signature across

Jenna Fernandez

Soraya Fouladi

The design was not only for the basketball court, but also printed on t-shirts, hoodies, and posters given out to ASW attendees. I also filmed b-roll of my process, which was played on screens around the experience. It was such a thrill!

Another cool aspect of the court that the Wasserman team (agency) meticulously produced was that the hoop could be lowered for a normal person to "dunk" on. There were cameras strategically placed around the experience such that it made it look like they were actually dunking. Dunking is way harder than it looks!

Thanks to "the boys" for capturing my story

Design notes

A moment for the art

This design was particularly fun to "solve" because we had to consider two things. First, the piece had to sit well compositionally with the natural lines on the NBA regulation-sized court. I didn't want key parts of the design to form tangents or odd visual overlaps / heaviness with the lines (of which there are many!). So, the swoosh of the whale echoes the curve of the 3-point line, and the Golden Gate bridge on the horizon sits on the half-court line.

Second, the team asked that I echo the shape language from AT&T's brand book: smooth, organic curves, a feeling of flowing motion. These qualities are also a big part of my style already, so it was very fun to draw! I also intentionally designed the piece to incorporate key colors in the AT&T brand palette: shades of blue and pops of green.

Round 1: Sketches

Round 2: Color study (not final fidelity rendering)

I also really appreciated that the AT&T team had looked through my portfolio and seemed to really "get it" — my aesthetic, my vibe — and they wanted me to simply go for it. I'm thrilled with the dreamy results and I think they speak for themselves!

Art without court lines

Art with court lines

Inspiration

Bay area forever

Having grown up in the Bay, I personally have so many special memories of adventuring through the city with my family and friends — in particular, the memory that this piece was inspired by directly was a time that my dad, sister, and I spontaneously hiked down a small, seemingly random path to find ourselves on Baker Beach, with the Golden Gate bridge greeting us in the distance. It was such a magical, "quintessentially SF" experience to me.