15 December 2009
Every once in a while I have to do a post about shoes. They are my favorite kind of design artifact. Below are a couple pairs that I picked up recently…
The shoe above is called “6 Rings” because the shoe design is a composite of the six different shoes MJ wore during his 6 championship years. They then did a series of releases where the same mold was stylized with details pertinent to each of the teams the Bulls beat to win those championships. The ones I got, of course, are designed with the Seattle SuperSonics in mind. You can see (barely) the Space Needle jutting out from behind the strap and the glove graphic for Gary Payton—nicknamed “The Glove” for his stifling defense. These came out the first year the Sonics no longer existed as a team in Seattle. I picked them up as a relic, of sorts, to keep their story alive in my life.
The shoes below are a re-release of the Jordan XIIs, stylized to accentuate out the Japanese Rising sun that originally inspired the design. I love the simplicity and cleanliness of the design and the way that it allows the strap and the “23” on the back to pop. Played in these last week and my shot was falling at an abnormally high percentage… Gotta be the shoes, right?
08 September 2009
Michael Jordan is being inducted into the Hall of Fame in a couple weeks and all parties involved (the NBA, ESPN, Nike, etc.) are, true to form when it comes to TGOAT, milking it for all they can. While I’ve enjoyed the endless highlights and stories shared on the two former sites, Nike takes the cake for the most creative: an interactive, digital pop up book. Check it out:
Now, go play around, enjoy the site, marvel at the raw beauty of the shoes (void of color or distractions), and learn a few fun tid-bits of Jordan trivia while you’re at it.
And, a note on design… There’s a studio that I saw a few weeks back that I imagine may have been either the inspiration or the hands behind this site, but I cannot for the life of me remember their name. They do madly lush, 3 dimensional digital compositions, not too unlike the above screen shots. Does anybody know who I’m talking about? I’ll snoop around some more and re-post if I find them.
24 January 2009
There’s a lot of buzz surrounding next-next week’s release of Coraline. And, from what I’ve seen so far, it seems to be totally justified. The website is incredible and there’s a ton really interesting making-of-type videos on there—like this one:
And, another random cool thing about new Coraline Dunks, limited to 1000 pairs that can only be won with a secret message after the premiere showing on Feb 6th. Phil Knight, the co-founder and chairman of Nike, is also the owner of Laika— the production studio behind Coraline—so that’s gotta be where the connection lies… pretty cool, though.
