___ A lifelong passion for footwear and design has given me the opportunity to work with many brands in different capacities, from consultant and collaborator through to Senior Design Director and VP / Head of Design, specialising in:
Creative Direction / Footwear Design / Graphic Design
___ SCROLL FOR A SELECTION OF PROJECTS…
FOOTWEAR DESIGN
___ Axel Arigato ‘Court Sneaker’
The simplest things are normally the hardest, so it was a great challenge to design a timeless style that was elegant and felt classic sport with some subtle hints of modernity through stance and geometry.
FOOTWEAR DESIGN
___ Axel Arigato ‘Sphere’
Creation of a new franchise for the brand with a focus on women’s chunky runner sneakers. The Sphere extends the Marathon family with 2 iterations, one casual and one more 2G tech.
FOOTWEAR DESIGN
___ Axel Arigato ‘Rush Sky’
An update to the Rush family with a new upper that had a design language that flowed with the sole unit but also felt unique and dynamic.
COLLABORATION
___ Axel Arigato & Bloody Osiris
Bloody wanted to create a pack of 2 styles that spoke to his unique style and his influence of late 80s Bball styles and New York City.
FOOTWEAR DESIGN
___ adidas ‘Re-Mastered & Re-Issued’
During my time in adidas Originals we had the chance to truly re-mater and re-issues 3 iconic silhouettes, in collaboration with Jacques Chassaing we first did the Rivalry ‘86, then came the Forum ‘84 and last but not least I personally had the pleasure of re-mastering mm by mm, texture by texture the iconic ‘Made In France’ version of the Superstar, the Superstar ‘82.
FOOTWEAR DESIGN
___ adidas ‘Boost You Wear’
Boost You Wear was a new iteration on the successful ‘Feet You Wear’ range that was designed in the 90s. Th team met with Peter Moore and Jacques Chassaing to embrace the ideology of the original concept and see how we could update it with the modern Boost platform and technology. We worked up 2 styles, an Originals play and then a special Originals meets Performance ‘On Court’ version that players could perform in. This project was joint effort from the whole team and shouts out to Jonathan Guisbert for his designs and collaboration.
COLLABORATION
___ adidas ‘Donald Glover Presents’
Working with Donald was a pleasure on this capsule range, it was a last minute thing that I needed to step up into and deliver and it was also a project that Im pretty pleased with. Donald’s vision was too have some simple designs that grew better in look with aging and wear. With his vision in mind I put together this concept of a mix of easy going materials like different weights of work wear inspired canvas with some more luxurious materials and gold details that were more of a discovery item and not so in your face. Items like inside out-gold eyelets juxtaposed against canvas laces that frayed the more your wore them.
FOOTWEAR DESIGN
___ adidas ‘TBLR Rise’
The ‘Rise’ was part of the Tubular range that played into this modern nomad look that was part of the Originals collection. I really wanted to look at drape of materials and real utilitarian attributes and material usage to drive the design. I worked from creating rough pullovers made out of army surplus materials, belts, straps and so on that gave a non sport look, the design went through much ideation and sketching till I got it to where it needed to be.
FOOTWEAR DESIGN
___ adidas ‘Akando’
The brief for the ‘Akando’ was to create a substation winter sneaker built through vulc construction that pays homage to the Adventure ranges of the 70s and 80s. I wanted to shoe to have a trippy feel to it and combine elements of heritage lines and modern colour play as well as rugged materials and details.
FOOTWEAR DESIGN
___ adidas ‘Delpala’
Simplicity and DNA are the main drivers for the design of the ‘Delpala’ silhouette. Influenced by 70s and 80s tennis shoes like ‘The Lob’ from the archive. I wanted to create an easy style that had enough details and call outs whilst still retaining a sense of timelessness.
FOOTWEAR DESIGN
___ adidas ‘Sabalo’
The ‘Sabalo was the outcome of looking how we could bring a new vulc silhouette to market that played into ‘daringly single’ attributes that took inspiration from the Tennis HU style and mixed it with 90s flavour. The curved medial blocking on the sidewall was inspired by fish eye lens camera work seen in skate video parts. The rest of the shoe is quite minimal and brings and exaggerated forward stance embracing modernity.
COLLABORATION
___ adidas & Beastie Boys
Talk about working with your heroes, this project was a bucket list moment for sure, I got to work with Ad Rock and Mike D in creating an Amerciana that wasn’t an obvious outcome for what you think they might do. They wanted a ‘vegan meets sports’ look, they also wanted to have a 90s skate feel to it. With that said, a palette of heavy canvas and french terry in natural, easy wear colours complemented the gum outsole and Amercana toe cap in gum also.
FOOTWEAR DESIGN
___ adidas ‘Coronado’
Taking on a lazy Sunday mentality and inspiration from the 70s adidas Freizeit range which is focused on leisure lifestyle. I played on elements of boat and leisure shoes and mixed that with skate lifestyle details and stance to bring this silhouette into play.
EVENT
___ 747 Basket Ball Culture
adidas celebrated its basketball connection with an all encompassing event held in LA with guest speakers, live events, musical appearances, a celebrity basketball match and a while host of cool stuff going on. A huge turnout as a big success for the brand.
EDITORIAL DESIGN
___ Book ‘The Graphic Art of Tattoo Lettering’
This book showcases some of the finest tattoo lettering from a host of top artists. BJ Betts curated the artists and illustrated the book, with Nick Schonberger taking control of all editorial content.
My role was to collate and paginate the content, and then art direct and design the pages.
Published by Thames & Hudson.
COLLABORATION
___ Clarks & Goodhood
Jo from Goodhood wanted to have the collaboration be a mixture of art meeting culture. Both inspired by the Wallabies relationship to Acid House and art Jo and I worked these designs to incorporate a hand painted pattern and details mixed with classic materials and playful fob sign-offs.
FOOTWEAR DESIGN
___ Clarks ‘Jacobee’
This project was a bucket list one for me for sure, I always wanted to play with Clarks’ DNA and put that through the lens of lifestyle running. I really enjoyed this one, a nice little idea that I like was this idea of what would a Weaver vamp look like if you pulled out the whip stitch, this was the inspiration that dictated the vamp perf details. I also worked with the last makers onsite to create a new last for this project that took inspiration form the nature last with its asymmetric toe down.
FOOTWEAR DESIGN
___ Clarks ‘Desert Hiker’
The Trek Hiker was my favorite style I designed at Clarks and is inspired by the Desert Trek but beefs up through the height, the classic hiking boot inspired upper and through the use of the Vibram tooling.
COLLABORATION
___ Converse & Trash Talk
For Trash Talk’s vocalist Lee Spielman, the idea was to work in monotone and create a set of Pro Leather’s that were subtle and simple with hints to the band also to Lee’s label Babylon LA. The shoe features brandless and nameless labels and iconographic sign-off details.
