Taking into consideration the popularity of Kyrie Andrew Irving as a basketball player, it is hardly a surprise that he became one of Nike athletes to get a signature shoe and, of course, a logotype created by professional designers.
Kyrie Irving is an Australian and American professional basketball player who has played for the NBA team Boston Mavericks since 2023. Prior to today the Irving’s star was shining in other legendary clubs: Cleveland Cavaliers (where he got the Rookie of the Year Title), Boston Celtics, and Brooklyn Nets.
During his time in the NBA, Kyrie participated in the NBA All-Star Game, where he earned Most Valuable Player honors in 2014, and was a member of the All-Star Third Team. Already an All-Star player by the start of his fourth season in the NBA, Irving reached a new level when sports giant Nike signed him in December 2014, followed by a collaboration that resulted in a sneaker model called the Nike Kyrie.
The first silhouette in the line was the Kyrie 1 model, which saw the light of day in 2014. The novelty came so much to the taste of buyers that Nike decided not to stop there and turn one sneaker into a whole line. Today, there are already seven silhouettes released under the Kyrie Irving label, with the Nike Kyrie 7 introduced in 2021.
In fact, Kyrie Irving did have a logo before his “footwear” cooperation with Nike started. The logo featured a big red letter “K”, which was somewhere in between an intricate Old English initial and a sleek modern font. The letter was made up of several bars, both horizontal and vertical, as well as two angled bars.
When Nike trademarked an emblem combining Irving’s initials in July 2014, the media made a logical assumption the athlete was going to receive a signature shoe from the sports company. So, it was only natural that later that year the KYRIE 1 shoe dropped at retail.
The 2014 Kyrie Irving logo includes two letters, “K” and “I”, which look even more like Old English initials than his first emblem. At least, they do not resemble the typical sleek typefaces used in most contemporary logos. The letter “I” is placed behind the “K”.
Taking into consideration the success of the first logo, it was perfectly understandable why the sports company decided to preserve the logotype unchanged for the second product in the Irving’s signature line, the Nike KYRIE 2 shoe.
We can hardly talk about an independent typeface, in this case. There are only two letters, none of which belong to an existing font. Designers created these characters from scratch.
Typically, the Kyrie Irving logo is reproduced using the combination of black and white (either a black monogram on the white background, of vice versa). This is arguably the most beneficial choice in case of intricate emblems like Irving’s as it provides great contrast and excellent legibility.