E-sports has continued to be popular among young people in recent years, and LPL, as the highest level of esports professional event in the Chinese mainland League of Legends, has also developed into an important social and cultural event like traditional sports events.
2023 is also the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the LPL event, "ten" in Chinese culture, meaning the end of this reincarnation, the beginning of the next reincarnation, so before the official start of the LPL spring tournament on January 14, a pre-season kick-off event for the 2023 season was specially held last night to show all "summoners" the important upgrades and updates made on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the LPL event, and we also went to the event site to experience this landmark event in the field of e-sports;
The pre-season sailing race officially started at 17:30 last night and was broadcast live to all players on multiple online platforms, the first thing we noticed was the new logo of the LPL event, which had been hotly discussed on social media a few days ago and displayed on the big screen, presented with the word "10", embedded in the Summoner Canyon map in 0 characters, and integrated with Chinese dragon elements in 1 character, further emphasizing "Chineseization";
Subsequently, the host of the event, Yu Shuang, invited Jin Yibo, CEO of Tengjing Sports, Qian Wei, Executive Director and Co-CEO of Li Ning Group, and Wang Yilun, head of IP derivatives business of Riot Games China, to speak on stage one after another, officially announcing that Li Ning and LPL Tournament have reached a 4-year "in-depth cooperation", and the three also elaborated on the motivation for cooperation, the story behind it, and the current and future layout.
The "true appearance" of the new competition uniforms of the LPL 17 teams was also exposed, and the members of the Li Ning design team began to interpret for the audience how the new competition uniforms were infused with traditional Chinese cultural concepts, vision, and functional performance, etc., and the representatives of the LPL 17 teams appeared in the team's new competition uniforms, which pushed the atmosphere of the scene and online live broadcast room to a "climax";
17 players plus 3 players selected from last year's Spring Championship, Summer Championship and Club of the Year, a total of 20 people formed four "teams" of Breaking the Team, Fighting Waves, Picking Stars and Riding the Wind, and started their "first battle in Li Ning Race Uniforms" at 18:00, which was also an early warm-up for the new season, and after two rounds of B01 competition, the "breaking team" composed of Theshy, XLB, Yagao, JackeyLove and Wink finally won the 2023 pre-season sailing championship;
This event also caused heated discussions in social media, giving birth to some explosive memes and topics, such as "Ning King who has not been seen for a long time", "Theshy's Timo", "JackeyLove Fire Man", etc., the players' new Li Ning competition clothes on the upper body also received concentrated discussions, many players expressed "want to enter the home team game uniform", "look forward to Li Ning for sale", etc., we will further analyze the precipitation behind the cooperation between the two sides and more stories of the new competition uniform.
Use Chinese e-sports to influence the world,
LPL reached cooperation with Li Ning,
"Layout" four core strategies,
The "debut" is the new suit:
Over the years, Li Ning has launched a long-term strategic layout around basketball, running, fitness, badminton, table tennis and other professional sports, and has grown together with China's sports industry, which also coincides with the professional sports competition spirit of League of Legends Pro League "Fearless Competition";
After the cooperation between the two parties this time, in the next four years, through the four strategies of sports operation of the event, product theme Chineseization, IP linkage trend, and diversified user experience, the two parties will jointly promote the development of professional sports events of the League of Legends Pro League.
Basketball, football and other traditional sports event uniforms are designed based on the characteristics of special sports, and also because of the deep cultural inheritance, profoundly affect youth popular culture, and League of Legends, as an e-sports project, is still in the stage of exploration and evolution in terms of professionalism, standardization and popularity of competition uniforms;
LPL is the top e-sports event of League of Legends in Chinese mainland, representing the LPL team in the Chinese region, winning the world championship three times, spreading the prestige of Chinese e-sports to the world, and Li Ning's performance in the field of trends and sports in recent years, especially the transformation of traditional Chinese culture into a "skill" that conforms to modern aesthetics, has been increasingly recognized at home and abroad;
Therefore, at the "node" of the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the event, LPL ended its previous 4-year cooperation with Nike and chose Li Ning, who better understands the presentation and advantages of Chinese culture, to "operate" the design of the competition uniform, and use more Chinese characteristics of the trend + e-sports method to "tailor-made" the 2023 new season uniform for the 17 club teams of the LPL.
Combining Chinese patterns, urban stories,
Infused with 17 team suits:
Through LPL, a top-level event, establishing a Chinese e-sports trend culture is the core concept and future vision of Li Ning's competition uniforms, such as taking inspiration from "Sun Tzu's Art of War", which should be different from the 5 positions of League of Legends, and design an exclusive "logo" printed on the cuffs of clothing, etc., Zhongdan MID is "Dou", Shangdan TOP is "Battle", Output ADC is "Var", Fighting Wild JUG is "Strategy" and Auxiliary SUP is "Strategy";
When creating a "full range of equipment" for the 17 teams of LPL, Li Ning also added unique Chinese stories, cities and patterns based on the spirit and characteristics of each team, integrating trend styles, and also designed "exclusive vision" according to the number of times each team won the Silver Dragon Cup, World Championship and other major championships, fully displaying the history and culture of the team and its achievements, and we also selected some representative teams for detailed interpretation.
Li Ning's "Full Range of Equipment" for LPL 17 teams
WBG、FPX、IG、UP 及 TES，
Chinese patterns such as phoenixes and oriental dragons,
Expression of the totem
WBG Club's 2023 new season lineup is shining with stars, gathering champions or popular players such as TheShy, Crisp and Karsa, and also won the first League of Legends Weibo Cup held earlier, the team uniform design is associated with the "eyes" of the WBG Logo, combined with the "Oriental Dragon" in the Chinese cultural totem, to create the core vision of the "Dragon's Eye" pattern, pure white color matching supplemented by red lines, team names and other embellishments, the appearance is similar to the EVA mecha look.
Team IG in the League of Legends S8 World Finals "One Crown Crown Sealed" is a good memory for countless LPL fans, the new season uniforms should also match the team's black and white main colors, Li Ning also used Chinese-style "ink painting" to interpret the "Peak" pattern, while placing the magnified visual "Pole" character in a prominent position in the clothing, echoing the team's culture and increasing the sense of trend.
S9 champion team FPX also has the nickname "Phoenix Team", and the team logo is also a fiery red phoenix, so the team's clothing adopts red and black colors, tiled visual print design inspiration, and selects its own "China's first phoenix" nickname, the earliest jade phoenix born in the Neolithic period, and its shape also influenced the development of Chinese phoenix art in the following thousands of years.
The UP team, which has two world champions, Ning and Baolan, Li Ning took the "thunder" in the team logo as inspiration and placed the traditional Chinese pattern "cloud thunder pattern" in the new team uniform design, and the color matching also fits the theme of thunder.
The TES club where the genius AD Jackeylove and Rookie, Tian and other players, the design of this competition uniform, with the Chinese "water ripple" pattern to symbolize "Tao", and "fight to no regrets" is the core concept of the TES team, so it also uses Chinese cloud patterns to mean "fight", which echoes the name of the club under the combination, and the big red color is also quite eye-catching.
From JDG, WE and LGD,
Based on the city where the club is located,
Show the heritage, culture
The JDG team's home base is located in Beijing, and Li Ning chose the pattern "Peking Opera Face" representing the city for transformation design, and presented it on the competition uniform in the form of a trendy visual print, and Ruler, Knight, 369 and other players who transferred to JDG this season have been demonstrated.
As an old team, WE still uses the team's classic "red" in its new uniform design, and takes WE home Xi'an as the visual core, selects the Xi'an city landmark Big Wild Goose Pagoda and the city flower pomegranate flower, prints it, and is supplemented by white color blocks to add "color-blocking" vision.
The LGD team of veteran player Jinjiao, who is also known as the "Golden Horn King", adopts a "red and blue" line visual design, and the shoes are also "Mandarin duck color", Li Ning also took materials from LGD's home stadium Hangzhou, with dark prints similar to silhouettes, showing West Lake, Santan Reflecting the Moon, Hangzhou traditional handicraft folding fans.
EDG, BLG and LNG new team suits,
Looking for the Warring States that took place in Spring and Autumn,
The "Chinese Story" of the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes
"Silver Dragon Cup" symbolizes the supreme glory of LPL events, Li Ning designed a "champion-exclusive" costume for EDG, the first Silver Dragon Cup winning team in 2015 and also the S11 global champion, using the phoenix bird pattern arrow cluster used by noble knights in the Spring and Autumn Warring States period to refer to the Silver Dragon Cup trophy, the pattern is paved, gradient silver effect, visually similar to luxury old flowers.
The team's LNG home slogan "Qilin in the Clouds" itself comes from the murals in the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, and the team's logo also takes the shape of a unicorn, all in line with traditional Chinese culture, and Li Ning Zetong "tiles" the dark visual unicorn print on the competition uniform, further "amplifying" the cultural and spiritual heritage of the LNG team.
The BLG team belongs to the well-known video platform Bilibili, and is loved by many young people "B station", and has also established a unique community culture and "meme" over the years, and currently there are popular players such as Bin, Yagao and other popular players under the team, Li Ning chose the most familiar "one-click three-in-a-row", and associated the "like" pattern with the Thousand Hands and Thousand Eyes Guanyin mural in Mogao Grottoes, printed on the new competition uniform, and the color matching also fits the UI style of "B station".
Dig deeper,
E-sports functions, professional needs,
"Tailor-made" for professional players:
For this reason, Li Ning organized brand designers in the early stage to watch and analyze the actual competition of professional players for more than 500 hours, and went deeper into the e-sports base to eat and live with the players to observe and experience their functional and professional needs for sports equipment, and finally completed the "tailor-made" for e-sports The full range of products;
In the tops section, a total of 3 different versions of T-shirts and 4 different types of jackets are brought up, all of which draw inspiration from the treasure house of ancient Chinese traditional collars and sleeves, satisfying e-sports players with different body shapes or dressing habits, and also enhancing "personalization" and daily wear space;
Three T-shirt fit designs
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Four outerwear fit designs
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The "exclusive fit" is specially created for e-sports events, not only has better performance in necessary functions such as comfort and breathability, but also gives more "activity space" for the shoulders, elbows, and cuffs of the jacket, and selects soft, skin-friendly and silent fabrics, so that players can be more engaged and attentive during the competition;
From top left to bottom right
RNG, OMG, NIP and TT Team New Season Uniforms
E-sports players in the process of the competition, for the leg sports demand is less, so Li Ning uses a more beautiful slim pants shape, bringing a more emphasis on the "trendy" pants design, but Li Ning also observed that the players in the high-frequency operation, high-pressure mental state, the hands will sweat a lot, but there is nowhere to wipe, so a special area is designed on both sides of the pants, using specific sweat-absorbing and breathable fabrics to meet the actual needs of the players, and also reflects Li Ning's intentions;
RA and AL team new season uniforms, from left to right
In the process of creating shoes, Li Ning also found that after long-term sitting, e-sports players will be engorged and swollen due to a large amount of blood flowing to their calves and feet, so they "customized" the new Yunyou Orca shoes, the upper is designed with all integrated woven materials, comfortable fit and full of wrapping, even in the case of swollen feet, can maintain comfort, full palm BOOM material brings a comfortable cushioning foot feeling, can further relieve foot pressure;
In terms of appearance, like clothing, each team shoe has its own theme, design language, color selection is also based on the main body of the color block on the surface of the clothing, corresponding divergence, ordinary young players can also choose their favorite "team shoes" in more scenes for light and medium intensity sports, or add fashion, street and other style styling.
Whether it is LPL events or Li Ning's products, they carry the special complex of many young domestic players, and the 4-year cooperation reached between the two parties will always be based on the three core keywords of "China", "professional" and "trend", and carry out more diversified content and product output in the future, and starting from the LPL 2023 new season of "professional e-sports sports equipment", we can also keep looking forward to and paying attention to how both parties will define the new era of "Chinese e-sports".