Jonathan Moore
I am a designer who lives in code, entrepreneur, and an idea incubator driven to make our world a better place.
I am a designer who lives in code, entrepreneur, and an idea incubator driven to make our world a better place.
“Great Scott!” Nike is finally releasing the shoe that every kid in the 80s dreamed of owning. Unfortunately the auto-laces feature doesn’t come out until 2015. With a limited run of 1,500 shoes, Nike is auctioning them off on eBay to benefit the Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. There is only 10 hours to go on some of the first shoes being auctioned, and the bids are already hitting $6,000.
Now where is my hoverboard?
Interactive studio YesYesNo worked with Nike to create a unique retail installation for the launch of Nike Free Run+ 2 City Pack series. They developed software that created unique digital paintings based on individual runner’s Nike+ data based on their speed, consistency and unique run style.
Designer and art director Marek Okon at W+K Tokyo recently updated his portfolio with a number of well designed and executed design, typography, print, motion graphics and user interface design. The image above is from Marek’s work on the Nike RUN FWD long distance relay interactive campaign to promote Nike+.
Found on Ventilate.ca
Tinker Hatfield, the designer of some of Nike’s most popular shoes including Air Jordan III through Air Jordan XV and the first “cross training” shoe talks about this history, design and performance of the latest Jordan BTC Low shoe. As you listen to the interview you’ll experience beautifully designed typography, illustration and animation that goes along with the interview. Nice work Blast Radius!
Working with Nike, Buck directed and produced one 30 sec spot for TV and a plethora of other animated goodness that coated multiple screens in Times Square for the World Basketball Festival in NYC. Character design by Saiman Chow, sound design and music by John Black / CypherAudio.
W+K Portland along with crayon sculptor and artist Diem Chau created ten unique kits for Nike’s “Write the Future” campaign. What a great way to celebrate an incredible campaign.
Running shoes become part of a DJ kit, in this online film for the Nike Free Run+, created out of Wieden + Kennedy, Tokyo.
Everybody gets knocked down, how quick are you going to get up? Excellent spot for Nike by agency Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, directed by Brian Beletic at Smuggler, and visual effects by MassMarket.
It especially interesting to notice that Nike is representing sports outside of their normal realm—MMA, bmx, and bull riding.
Created by AKQA, True City provides users with a unique insight into six European cities, making the hidden visible through the knowledge and insight of Nike Insiders. Download the iPhone app (Europe only).
The brilliant part of this campaign isn’t the use of technology and augmenting the city with data, but rather relying on select, local tastemakers to reveal culture throughout the cities. In 2008 and 2009 we saw the rise and evolution of social media, but I believe 2010 and beyond will be focused on using the social media as a tactic rather than strategy to allow brands to create and curate culture.
This afternoon between meetings I stopped by Nike’s second combined action sports brand retail space, Nike 6.0/Hurley/Converse, at the Irvine Spectrum in southern Orange County, California (the first store is in Laguna Beach, CA - 225 Forest). I managed to take a few pictures on my phone before I was asked to leave the store (**more on that below).
The retail space was a brilliant move on the part of Nike to help gain further main-stream exposure to their 6.0 line to an audience that is quite familiar with the Nike owned Hurley and Converse brand. The most unique aspect of the store was the large area filled with binders of art, spools of colorful laces, screen printers, and high-tech printers for product customizations. At the NikeID station pair up with a “Maestro” who will help you as you customize your purchase with artwork from kidrobot, Jason Maloney (Hurley), Aero (Nike) and many others. Virtually everything you buy in the store can be customized—shoes, board shorts, teeshirts, hats, and jackets.
In addition to the Nike 6.0, Hurley, and Converse products the store also carried an array of other design-focused products like Skullcandy headphones and Kidrobot toys.
Personally I believe we’re about to see a surge of product customization as brands are starting to wake up to contemporary culture. Obviously this trend will take off in youth culture markets, but the opportunity is just as strong for brands in virtually all markets.
** I fully understand that taking photos in retail space has long been taboo for the reason of “protecting trade secrets and copyrights”, but in this day and age of Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook the idea of shunning people of taking snapshots with their phone seems counter-productive. We’re living in a time where brands are integrating rewards programs with social media, location aware apps are taking off, and 850 million photos are uploaded to Facebook each month. It’s time to fully embrace the fact consumers play a massive role in cultivating and adding value to, even at the risk of “loosing trade secrets”. When I was very politely told I was not welcome to take photos, I apologized and left.
Tokyo architecture firm Wonderwall (featured last October for their amazing site) recently unveiled Nike’s first Japanese flagship store in one of my favorite districts—Harajuku, Tokyo, Japan. The store is full of well designed elements like the sneaker chandelier, “Just Do It” sign from foot molds, waffle iron wall-tiles (tribute to the first Nike soles formed in a waffle iron), and a turf track to test the shoes.
More coverage on the store opening at Cool Hunting, Kitsune Noir, Wonderwall Inc., Flickr, and the official Nike Harajuku site.
