Nike tasked us with creating an internal community of practice that could shift employee mindsets and take them to new heights. To make it work, this community also needed an identity and a story that these people could get behind.

As a brand, Nike knows that if it wants to change the world, then its workforce - now and into the future - needs to believe that it can. Such ambition can only be achieved with an understanding that Nike’s best work is always ahead of it. Our brief was to spread that understanding far and wide within Nike’s campuses through tools, talks, and training designed to motivate some of the world’s best talent.

Creating Nike’s internal community of practice, fostering a culture of innovation, iteration and collaboration across Nike’s global product and design community. Inspiring the people that inspire athletes everywhere.

Born from the swoosh itself, CURV Studios’ goal is to foster a culture of innovation, iteration, and collaboration across Nike’s global product and design community and cement Nike as a place where the best can be their best and create the extraordinary.

CURV Studios’ names comes from the fact that progress rarely happens in a straight line. It twists and turns as it meets its goal. This progress is at the heart of Nike’s Swoosh. That curve points to the growth within each Nike employee. It represents Nike's learning curve as standards are raised. Its also Nike’s dedication to being ahead of the curve as its people relentlessly chase what’s next.

CURV Studios represents all of this ambition and more.

The studio’s unique swoosh represents the four stages of the creative process – preparation, incubation, illumination and verification – and alludes to the product mindset of invention and iteration which is at the heart of Nike’s business.

CURV Studios’ wordmark is also informed by the four stages of creativity, with each letter constructed from a 4x4 grid that gives clarity at scale. This process of construction is true to Nike’s builder ethos and hints towards the many prototypes that get Nike closer to its finished products.

Its leading graphical device, the pipeline, embodies the product journey and the shared belief that progress rarely happens in a straight line but is the sum of every step taken to get there. The colours on which the ever-changing gradient was founded, as well as the shape itself, come directly from an artwork on Nike’s Hilversum campus - which represents

We created Nike’s internal community of practice, fostering a culture of innovation, iteration and collaboration across Nike’s global product and design community. Inspiring the people that inspire athletes everywhere - to define its purpose, driving the highest standards across Nike’s workforce.

Starting an internal studio from scratch requires getting to the root of the issue — scraping the surface will only serve your assumptions. Through interviews with our direct clients in addition to other departments within the European HQ and beyond, the need for a unifying community like CURV Studios became even more clear. Its remit became wider and its purpose became clearer.

This continual need to evolve our approach due to “user needs” was very much in-line with the original intent behind the broadening of the Product mindset — and within our team, it is something we’ve come to not only appreciate, but adopt ourselves.