Nike RISE was a collaborative project executed by four designers during the 2014 Pensole Footwear Design workshop. Nike sponsored the effort, and the team was given free reign to create a project best suited to Nike’s core strengths and interests. Based on emerging trends, we formed a new sub brand promoting the rising stars in new extreme sports. As the Color + Material Design lead, I created the new brand identity and CMF platform to support my team of footwear designers.

Each footwear designer explored an up and coming sport and an emerging athlete to represent the activity. We defined design opportunities, user profiles, and identified the defining characteristics of each distinct sport.

NIKE RISE BRAND CHARACTERISTICS

Based on the activities and personalities that represented each sport, I created visual inspiration boards to capture their essence and build a unifying visual identity for the new RISE brand. These boards also served to guide and inspire each of the footwear designers as they developed concepts for their respective sports and athletes.

I created a color palette unique to each design but incorporated the brand’s signature color, Challenge Orange, as the common thread.

FINAL PRESENTATION

Nike is a brand that emphasizes athlete empowerment and has established a number of sub brands focused on more niche and specialized markets. We saw this as a great opportunity to break into a new area and dominate the market for these sports, while promoting the pioneering athletes, and believe this will resonate with Nike customers and help build awareness of and participation in these sports. Because Nike is a company deeply rooted in R&D with many products featuring innovative, high-performance materials, we knew our designs would need to live up to these very high standards.

Our team presentation to Nike featured footwear designs for each sport supported by my material recommendations, color palette, and strategy for the new brand category.