TEETALES–A SERIES OF TEES THAT TELL A STORY
THE BOWERMAN TEES. For the Fall 2007 season Nike wanted to tell the story of Bill Bowerman, its co-founder and chief innovator. This was to be on of the higher end lines and that meant the tees had to be executed in a way that appealed to a fashion-forward consumers. Finding the right details to include was further complicated by the fact that we could not use Bill Bowerman’s name or image, due to legal issues. I decided to create four tees that literally told a chronological story of Bowerman’s career. At Nike he was simply called “The Man,” so I ran with that. The story was told on small swatches of silkscreened fabric that were zig-zag stitched inside the tee—flip the hem and read the narrative. See details here.
The four historical moments were:
1948, becomes coach at University of Oregon
1968, invents the Cortez shoe
1972, head coach of US track and field
1974, invents the waffle trainer shoe
THE AF1 TEES. The women’s group at Nike was launching an initiative around the iconic Air Force One shoe, the first basketball sneaker that utilized air-bag technology. Tees and hoodies were part of this effort—and I was tasked with creating a few to extend the brand.
I wanted to design women’s line without relying on the overused tropes of pink…or flowers and strength without resorting to verbal sass, things I thought were woefully overplayed in women’s athletic wear.
So what could I do to evoke air and strength from a chunky, brick like shoe without mentioning “Air Force One?” I started thinking about how I could depict air. Flowy lines? Nah. Could I just write “Air?” That’s boring. Then I wondered, What in the air has personaIity? There’s clouds, there’s leaves, there’s animals...That’s it! Animals. So I created a series of winged creatures constructed out of the shoe’s sole—a butterfly, a dragonfly, and an eagle. The end result was an ethereal design created out of a chunky shoe.
Air Force One Dragonfly
Air Force One Eagle
Air Force One Butterfly
THE NIKE DUNK. This was a series of tees that hooked to the iconic Dunk sneaker. There was a small seasonal push for the shoe. I decided to turn the Dunks into things one can dunk in milk. So we have mint chocolate, sprinkle donut, nutter butter, chocolate chip, green macaron, and oreo.
These were part of the same delivery, but I spun them differently. The type dunk was a boy's style and the heart dunk was a women's style.
A wee glimpse into my process. The original photo I took to help me draw the shoes. I wanted to use the same arrangement for all the various treatments.
I found these original pencil sketches of the type Dunk. Usually my sketches disappeared into the ether.
IMAGINE IF NIKE EXISTED IN THE 1890s TEES. This was an odd one. We designed a line of tees that were to evoke what Nike might have looked like if it had existed around the turn of the 20th century–take our design values and map them to another time. These were my two contributions. They are a combo of 3D rendering, some old school clip art, some of my own typeface drawing, my writing, and some photoshop painting.