I came across Artist Series last February. I think Pep Martens had already been declared the winner of the Lebron James contest, and the deadline was very near for the March Yao Ming competition. I wanted to enter, but I had a mountain of freelance work which would keep me from developing a design in time. A couple days later I read on KicksGuide that, "adidas will fly the winner of the T-Mac 4 contest to Orlando to meet Tracy McGrady in person and present his/her winning design to a team of adidas designers". That news heightened my excitement over the decision I had already made to send submit a design, though I figured winning was a long shot.

	Pictured above is the T-Mac 4 design which I submitted to Kicksguide for the April Artist Series contest. I created the black colorway to the left later in the month and shared it on KickGuide Chat.

I submitted my design for the April Artist Series T-Mac 4 competition with high expectations. My goal was to make the finals and have my design shown. That's it. I just wanted to see what others thought of my work.

It had been several years since I'd even considered my potential as a shoe designer. I've been a shoehead since, probably, 6th or 7th grade. My two main hobbies were basketball and art. Where better do those two subjects converge than in hoops footwear? I played varsity basketball through junior college, and chose art as my major. Though I enjoyed painting and illustration, athletic footwear design was what I most wanted to do.

Just before graduating from Hendrix College, with a Bachelors in art, I applied to Auburn University to study Industrial Design. With no spots open for the Fall semester, I continued to beg for any spot that might open second semester. A spot opened, and I was reluctantly accepted. I say "reluctantly" because they warned me it would be very difficult to start then without the experience of first semester. I didn't listen. I drove 500 miles to start second term classes. After two weeks I caved under the pressure of my own unpreparedness and a couple issues of a more personal nature.

Though I never had any real regrets about that decision, I have occasionally considered the different path my life might have taken had I listened to that advice, and waited until the following fall to enroll. But my eventual decision to go into graphic design has proven to be a good one. I'm currently Senior Graphic Artist in the equipment division of Snap-on, globally accepted as maker of the finest hand and power tools.

When I started sketching my T-Mac design it was like tapping into an old dream. Before the T-Mac 4 contest, I had not sketched a shoe, even for fun, in probably seven years. And though I use a computer several hours a day, I'd never rendered a shoe design on one. So waking up one April morning to find the design not only posted among the finalists (KG published them all at once back then), but also leading in votes, was a huge surprise. Perhaps the most fun part of the moment was waking up my wife to show her, because I had secretly designed and rendered the shoe without her knowing about it.

Watching the vote totals rise all month was a lot of fun. I'm not sure I've seen the talk on the chat board become so heated as it did in April. But when this trip became surreal was when I answered the phone one day to hear "Hello, this is Melanie Blehm, from adidas. Congratulations on winning the contest. We want to bring you to Portland to meet our footwear design team." What?! I knew I was going to meet T-Mac and one or two people from adidas, but finding out that I was actually going to adidas Village and meeting the whole design team was totally unexpected, and very exciting.

A couple days before my departure Melanie called again to wrap up details. As we talked, she mentioned that another one of the Artist Series contestants would be there too. Surprised, I asked who. She said, "His name is Zenith." I said,"That's great! I already know him." That was quite a coincidence, since Zenith was the only other contestant I'd communicated with outside the chat board. I was excited for him because I knew he was just finishing industrial design school and was looking for work, and that the trip to Portland could be a great experience for him.

Zenith and I arrived at the hotel about an hour apart. From Zenith's emails and nutty posts on KicksGuide Chat, I expected a little hyper dude. To my surprise he was very laid back. But then again, he could have just been tired. All he could talk about was how hungry he was. I was too, so we decided to walk to a 7-11 for eats. It had to be a mile away. While walking, we talked about school, sports, faith, life in Ontario (him), life in Arkansas (me), and of course, kicks. Back at the hotel, we ate and checked out Zenith's portfolio, with which I was very impressed. It was well past midnight, so I decided to head back to my room for a little rest since adidas was sending a car to pick us up at 8 A.M.

Upon arrival at adidas Village, I couldn't help but notice how the architecture looked so "adidas". No picture I could have taken would be as good as one from the adidas-salomon website, so just check it out there. (Footwear Design is in the nearest of the 6 buildings.)

adidas Footwear Design Department. Yes, that's a cardboard cutout of Kobe Bryant leaning against the window.  Go figure.	Zenith feeling the love in Tracy's love seat. It actually looks more like a chair when chair when T-Mac sits in it.

The first person Zenith and I met was Melanie. It was nice to finally put a face with the voice. She introduced us to Todd Rolak, a Footwear Designer who would be our host. While we were in an office where we would store our stuff (Zenith's backpack and my portfolio), a tall grey-haired man unexpectedly walked in. Todd introduced him as "Erich", and tells him that Zenith and I are shoe design contest winners. Erich had a distinct German accent, so I figured he was likely from the adidas "mothership." After brief small-talk we left the office. Todd told us that we'd just met Erich Stamminger, adidas Head of Global Marketing and President/CEO of adidas America, whose visits to that wing of the building are very rare. Our chances of running into him there were "slim and none", Todd said.

Right away, Todd took us to Footwear Design. I asked him if I could take my camera with me to help document the visit for KicksGuide. He said "sure", and that we could take photos at will, and that he'd let us know before we entered a no-photo area. I was surprised by the freedom were were allowed with our cameras. We quickly met all the footwear designers, who were all friendly. It seemed to be a very "team" environment. Their work spaces were only separated by cubicles barely taller than their desks. Shoe designs, both hand- and computer-rendered, as well as sample shoes in all colors lying around everywhere. But I didn't notice any obvious indications of which designers were responsible for which designs.

Size 9 samples in all colorways abounded throughout the adidas Footwear Design Department. Notice the the white/red shoe sample from the upcoming Team T-Mac line.	Garnett's shoe in a beige/brown colorway which I was told would will be sold as a Footlocker exclusive.

The only exception to that was when we met Senior Designer Kyle Pulli. As we talked, it became obvious that he had much to do with the new T-Mac 4. He said it employed a new laceless technology called Hug, and that it was still under wraps (it was mid-May and there were no samples or renderings within view). I mentioned that I'd seen a photo of it on the NikeTalk website. But he explained that that the photo is a bit misleading because it was a kid size, which didn't incorporate "Hug", the most unique feature of the adult version. I was a little disappointed at that point because I had hoped to get to see the real T-Mac 4. But I held out hope, for the tour had just begun.

We proceeded to the other side of the building to meet a couple guys who turn finished design renderings into 3-D forms using design program called FreeForm^TM. Zenith and I were allowed to tinker with the software, which was accompanied by a very interesting piece of hardware. It was a stylus suspended in air by a robotic arm. On the screen it could be turned into any type of "virtual" tool to be used to model a 3-D form — just like working with clay. When a shoe rendering is completed, the "print" command actually produces a hard synthetic 3-D shoe model. This free-form technology has allowed 2 guys to gradually replace a much larger group who used to work in real clay.

adidas' FreeFormTM designers very graciously allowed us to barge in and take over their computers for some playaround time.	Zenith uses the robotic stylus which accompanies the FreeFormTM program.	A 3-D model produced by FreeFormTM
More on FreeFormTM: A press release announcing the 2000 collaboration of adidas-Salomon and SensAble Technologies, maker of FreeFormTM A FreeFormTM product brochure (PDF)

Next, Todd took us across the street. This building included everything from the shop where patterns for cutting leather and other shoe materials are made, to where the rubber outsoles are molded and the sample shoes assembled. Here, all shoes are sampled in size 9 before going into mass production. Todd revealed that his shoe size is... you guessed it... "9", which has allowed him to amass a ridiculous collection of sneakers, many in colorways never put into production.

adidas uses its own unique last design. These lasts were piled into bins by the hundreds, and we were not allowed to photograph them. We did, however, get to photograph some of the funnier things in this area — namely, shoes and plaster foot molds of some of the adidas athletes. I've always thought that Antoine Walker was an oddly built athlete. His foot is no exception — it's just plain ugly. There was also a huge running shoe made for Dikembe Mutombo when he was with adidas. I took a picture of Zenith goofing with it.

Patterns being cut prior to sample shoe construction	Antoine Walker foot mold	Zenith Chance shows the freakish contract between the size of his own head and Dikembe Mutombo's foot.

One of the more interesting things we learned here was that shoes are not custom made for the foot of even the most high profile athletes. A plaster sample of the athlete's foot is sometimes used for figuring out his optimum size, but almost never for custom building a shoe. The only exception is when an athlete might have an extreme orthopedic condition caused by injury or foot malformation.

Next we moved on to a department which appeared similar to a shoe store — seemingly a production-meets-marketing sort of area. There were apparel racks and many styles and colorways of shoes displayed on a wall. A few employees were buzzing around mixing and matching shoes and apparel. It was here that I saw it — the white/black colorway, just like the early kid's shoe photo I'd seen on the internet. Only this one had what appeared to be a chunky contraption in the heel area. About 2 seconds after I picked it up, Todd politely removed it from my hand, saying, "Sorry, I'll take that." As he returned it to it's spot and led us out of the room the following conversation ensued...

Todd:   "Let's go somewhere else."
Me:      "I suppose I can't take a picture of that, huh?"
Todd:   "Take a picture of what?"
Me:      "That shoe"
Todd:   "What shoe?"
Me:      "The one back there."
Todd:   "Back where?"
Me:      "Okay."
Zenith: (laughter)

So, just for the record (and Todd's neck), we DID NOT PHOTOGRAPH THE T-MAC 4 during our visit.

We then went to the oval-shaped facility which houses a workout area and basketball court. Judging from the enormous curtain-like poster hanging on one side of the court, one might have thought that it was T-Mac's personal gym. Implanted in the court near the top of the key was an interesting device used for measuring the physics of a footstrike while running downcourt. That was very interesting, but I was soon distracted by a basketball. I went to shoot baskets as Zenith and Todd stood courtside and talked. I think they were a bit afraid to join me because I was on fire. Just as I was about to demand that they put up a giant poster of me beside T-Mac, Todd said it was time to go back.

Zenith and I pose for a photo in front of T-Mac's "NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE" poster.	A device used to measure footstrike in R & D	Money! I was not able to persuade adidas to add my poster to those in the gym despite more than proving myself as a dead-eye gunner.

Todd had recently returned to adidas after leaving a few years back. During his time away he worked for Columbia Sportswear and And1, both also based in Portland, in addition to spending a brief time with Sketchers, based in L.A. Such a career, I learned, is fairly common. Todd described shoe business at the design level as "incestuous", in reference to the frequency of designers moving from one company to another. I asked, "Do the companies not worry about the exchange of inside information in those situations?" Todd basically said a company's technologies are patented, so that information couldn't be used even if possessed by another company. He explained that, in terms of design, each of the top companies have their own design philosophy, and a designer works within that philosophy. For example, you can take the swooshes and stripes off of most Nike and adidas shoes and still tell which company produced them, much in the way you can tell the origin of an American, German, or Japanese vehicle by style alone, and without visible branding.

Zenith at one point asked Todd what was the most gratifying moment in his career. He said it was last year when he was at home watching an NBA game in which 6 of the 10 players on the floor were wearing either the 2 Chi or the Chosen 1, both of which he designed while with And1.

As time approached noon, we met back up with the rest of the footwear designers and walked to the village cafeteria for lunch. This place was abuzz with adidas employees. Most looked young, hip, and athletic, while styles of dress were from casual/athletic to dress/casual.

Lunch was good, but the conversation was great. I sat across from Kyle, who seemed to be not so much a shoehead as you might expect, but more a student (still) of design in general. I could tell he really follows car design. While the subjects of conversation ranged well away from shoe design and sports, I made it a point to try to steer the chat back around to the T-Mac 4. I was glad I did, as Kyle began to share some of the thought process behind the new shoe, including the marketing side of things.

Lunch with the adidas Footwear Design team. Clockwise from bottom left: Zenith Chance, Kyle Pulli, Cheng Kue, Matt Schmunk, Todd Rolak, Sam Rathburn, myself, Durron Richard and Mykel Rodarte

The process started with the examining evolution-based approach to the first 3 T-Mac models, which focused much more on cosmetic evolution than on a performance-based technology. They knew that had to change. Kyle admitted that there was disappointment that the T-Mac 3, despite good sales, had so quickly hit the "sale bin" on the retail front. They felt that since Tracy McGrady had become, to adidas, the closest thing to what Jordan once was to Nike, that he deserved a shoe which not only pushed the style envelope, but also served as a platform for newest performance-based technology adidas had to offer. In addition, they felt that T-Mac had achieved a marketability status by which consumers expected his signature shoe to exceed, in both performance and style, those in the $80-$90 price range, which his previous 3 models had been.

Kyle said adidas started working in 2001 on ways to use a ski-boot closure system on a court shoe. Once they arrived with a workable closure design, which they named "Hug", they pitched the idea to Tracy. He loved it. That's when the project was turned over the Kyle, who had to fold the technology into a design that suited T-Mac's style. Kyle said Tracy is very trusting with the designers and usually doesn't like to get involved in the design process outside of approval of the final design.

Kyle mentioned the contrast between Tracy and Kevin Garnett, who gets very involved in the design of his shoes and, having more of an old-school taste, has very specific ideas as to what he wants in terms of style. Kyle thought that Garnett's insistence on being involved in the whole process is perhaps partly a result of his past endorsement experiences with Nike and And1, each of which ended with some level of controversy.

Of course we finally got around to discussing my T-Mac design. They were most interested in the strap, and how I arrived at the idea.

After lunch we made our way to the final stage of my visit to adidas Village, the board room. The pleasant conversation over lunch led to a very relaxed atmosphere there. The topics of conversation remained fairly wide-ranging, though they now centered solely around me. They asked questions about my family, my current job at Snap-on and life in Arkansas. One of the guys mentioned that he and friend, both kayakers, had been scoping out the many rivers that run through the Arkansas Ozark Mountains. I told him that I had actually floated most of them myself and that Melanie had my contact information should he ever decide to make the trip.

Of course we finally got around to discussing my T-Mac design. They were most interested in the strap, and how I arrived at the idea. I told them I really couldn't name anything that inspired it other than my desire to do something that I'd not seen in a sneaker before. That something ended up being a strap that with an invisible end (not really invisible, but hidden under the sole). I wished I'd had sketches to show them the process, but the fact is, as I explained, "I sort of did the sketches in my head." By the time I put it on paper, I already knew almost exactly how I wanted it to look and traced the design in Illustrator right over the scanned pencil sketch. The only change I made during that process was to the plastic shank plate on the lateral side, which I widened and gave 3 subtle stripes. The word "clever" was used by one of the designers for my idea for the 3 stripes on the medial side, one of which was on the shoe, and the other two on the strap.

They knew from previous conversations that I had a couple other designs I'd hand sketched since my T-Mac design. They asked to see those, about which we talked briefly. But my time was up. Melanie had warned earlier that our schedule was very tight and would require some rush in order to make my flight home. My only real disappointment that day was that I didn't get to stay and for Zenith's presentation, as he had gotten to sit in on mine. I thanked Todd and the rest of the guys for the great time I'd had, wished Zen the best and expressed my regret for not being able to stay for his presentation, and said good bye.

The first leg of the prize was complete. I had still not met T-Mac. But I have since. I'll share that story with you soon here at KicksGuide.

Again, I'd like to offer many thanks to both KicksGuide, for making this possible, and everyone at adidas who helped make my visit so memorable. I had a blast.

RH