Sixers Innovation Lab

Services

  • Branding
  • Website Design

The Problem

The Philadelphia 76ers are a world-class NBA franchise. And they came to us with a world-class business project – orchestrate a full brand makeover for their all-new, state-of-the-art business incubator, the Sixers Innovation Lab. We were also tasked with creative strategy and art direction for Innovation Lab’s new Website - and with acting as the sole branding and marketing partner for Lab’s incubator companies.

Our Approach

The Lab’s new brand needed to be elevated, professional and reflective of the economic strength of the incubator and its financial partners, while still harkening back to the heritage and sports pedigree of the 76ers. The new Website would be designed and organized with an exclusive, concise flow and professional design aimed at potential incubator entrepreneurs.

The Results

The 76ers Innovation Lab’s refreshed brand launched flawlessly. The Lab itself has also recently launched a number of its incubator companies - all for whom we provided full-scale branding and marketing strategy. Lastly, the Lab also celebrated the grand opening of their cutting-edge incubator facility - a truly innovative workspace to foster the growth and success of their entrepreneurs. And in February 2018, we were awarded an American Advertising Federation ADDY Award for the Innovation Lab logo in the Elements of Advertising, Visual category.

Balancing Basketball & Business

Creating the new brand for the Sixers Innovation Lab allowed us to explore a totally new genre. Notably, because the concept itself was treading into untrodden ground – a business incubator rooted in sports. It was critical that the brand reflect both personalities. So we undertook an exhaustive logo exploration – sometimes with ink pen and notepad, sometimes digitally. Ultimately, the result delicately melded the worlds of business and basketball with instant clarity.

Don’t Make the User Jump Through Hoops


When creating any Website, user-interface and user-experience are critical to the site’s success and are interwoven with the simplicity and guidance of design. So for the Sixers Innovation Lab Website, we aimed to keep things clean and well-organized. To eliminate distractions but present a thorough amount of content attractively. The underlying creative strategy that we employed focused on the Lab’s potential clientele and the appeal of working with a state-of-the-art business incubator owned and operated by an historic NBA franchise.

Introducing the Innovators

The bulk of Maven’s partnership with Innovation Lab comes from our role as sole branding and marketing partner for the Lab and its incubator businesses. Each with its own concept and lead by forward-thinking, risk-taking entrepreneurs, we get to know each incubatee inside and out. Fully analyzing their product offerings and audience. Then providing creative services, branding and strategy to help each blossom into something bigger. To date, we’ve directly created full-scale branding and strategy for the Lab’s four flagship entities - Monster Roster, Live Life Nice, U Git Gud and Doc & Phoebe’s Cat Co.