Inside the Huddle: Larry Bird

Inside the Huddle brings you behind the curtain to see what went into the supporting illustrations from the Baseline Review. Editor and Creative Director JP Boneyard shares his insights into the process. Next up is Larry Bird from Christen Teller's story The Legend of Larry Bird, illustrated by Matt Taylor.

The Concept
Larry Bird shooting a jumper in a field is the most Indiana thing we can think of. A field of corn or wheat is where your mind goes first, right? I wanted to pull from the iconography of St. Joseph. This ties in with the line “Bird is like the league’s patron saint of craftsmen (St. Joseph)”. Bird worked tirelessly on his craft to make up for the fact that he wasn’t the most athletic guy on the court.

The field of white lilies was our way of tying in the flower motif associated with St. Joseph. Lilies also represent purity, which speaks to the purity of Bird's shot. They also represent rebirth which is analogous to the rebirth of the league—and the Celtics organization—when Bird (and Magic) entered the NBA. The Lillies also just work on a basic level because, you know, they’re white, yellow, and green: The same colors on the Celtics warm up jackets in Bird's era. Matt did amazing work bringing this concept to life.

Supporting Illustration from our story The Legend of Larry Bird

Color Palette
We love the direction Matt chose for the colors. The bright green is a call back to that wild green the Celtics used on their home court during part of the 80s. It’s not a color you see too often. At some point I added some contrast to the color palette, muted some colors, and boosted others. That got us even closer to the vivid green on the Celtics home court. That's what you see in the final supporting illustration.

Boston's Home Court in 1985, Note the Wild Electric Green in the Paint

We love that the yellow and bronze colors are used so heavily for Bird's skin tones. It leans in perfectly to this idea of Bird as Legend. It’s like he’s a living bronze statue. It reminds me of the Leonard Cohen lyric from A Bunch of Lonesome Heroes “I would like to tell my story, because I feel I’m turning into gold.” That sounds like an attitude Bird would have. Minus the part where he'd want to talk. He'd let his game doing the talking. Overall Matt brought a lovely painterly quality that lends itself really well to surreal vibe going on with these illustrations. Pulling this off—and color separating complex illustrations like this—is no small feat. The screenprinted stories look gorgeous in person.

Color Separations for the Six Color Screenprint from The Legend of Larry Bird

The Cover
We wanted the Bird and Magic covers to mirror one another. We followed Jonathan's lead with the Magic story and depicted Bird in a warm up jacket. Those things rule! Though it's funny to see them in tandem with the world's shortest shorts. It looks like they're Porky Pigging it. Gotta love the 80s and the nards it takes to rock those things, though!

Cover from Our Story The Legend of Larry Bird

Unplanned Parity 
It's wild that Matt instinctively drew the ball as pure white. He hadn’t seen the Magic illustration yet. We love that synergy between the two stories—especially when it happened by chance. After all, it's hard to tell the story of Bird without telling the story of Magic (and vice versa). This unintentional parity feels meant to be, just like their inextricably connected careers. 

Unexpected Parity Between The Bird and Magic Supporting Illustrations

TL;DR
The main Bird illustration references the iconography of St. Joseph, the Patron Saint of Craftsmen. Lilies are associated with Joseph. They also represent purity (of Bird's shot) and rebirth (of the Celtics). The cover depicts LB in a way similar to that of a living bronze statue. Bird's shorts were really short. Matt nailed both of the supporting illustrations!

Huddle Up
This has been another installment of Inside the Huddle with Editor and Creative Director JP Boneyard. Thank you for taking the time to learn more about the player, the supporting illustrations, and the creative energy that went into this work. We appreciate you!