First of all, congratulation to Pep Martens on winning February's Lebron James concept signature shoe. It is the first FULL month of the Artist Series contest (our January contest deadline passed over the holiday season without much publicity). So far, the contest has shown more talents and creative minds than we could have ever hoped. More importantly, it demonstrates that shoe designers are not alone in this world. Submissions to the contest come from all around the globe. Behind each piece of work is a passion for sneakers and the art form of making what is in our mind a reality. Before you see that dream car in the dealership show room, it appeared as a concept car at auto shows, and before that, it was sketched and rendered much like what you see here for shoes. We want to thank Jason Petrie (Alphaproject) for jump starting the contest with his story and inspiration. We want to thank the designers for their submissions and hard work. Not everyone can get the recognition by making to the finals, but sometimes the journey of getting to the goal is more meaningful than actually arriving there. Keep up the great work, learn, improve and don't give up your dreams to do what you love.

      In basketball, there's a term: "Let the players play". Sometimes you need to loosen the reign and just let the players play the game. In the same sense, the shoe manufacturers today need to let the designers design. Where is the innovation and creativity that we've been accustomed to during the Golden Era of the past decade? What happened to the innovation and bombs that gets dropped year in and year out? Sneaker fans used to anticipate each Air Jordan release just to see what Tinker has got up his sleeve this time. Today, the fans only look forward to the limited edition releases for fear of missing out on profit or a hard to find shoe. It would be unfair to call new releases these days poor designs. They are not poor. They are simply mediocre. Every shoe is designed with sales, profit and practicality in mind. Will this shoe sell? What risks are we facing if the public can not accept this design? Ask enough of those questions and you'll find yourself constrained by numbers and balance sheets rather than the limits of your imagination. Hopefully, this contest can help remind everyone of shoe designing at its purest form - putting our passion on paper and let the mind roam free.

      We've asked the winner of the Lebron James theme to tell us a little more about his rendering. What you see above is the All-Star edition of his winning design. Below is Pep Martens in his own words:

Let me just say how thrilling the Artist Series is. Such a good idea to 'officialize' the drc's that we're going on NikeTalk and Kickz101. It adds a whole new dimension. From the thrill of appearing among the 10 finalists to actually leading the votes and finally even winning. I must have checked KG a thousand times last month.. And the fact that the eyes of the industry come across the Artist Series too is really exiting. Just imagine Tinker impatiently waiting for you guys to put the April finalists up..and discussing his favorites with Aaron Cooper at the coffee machine.

About the Lebron design; I had the idea for the 720 air unit at the start. Me and my friends had been reminiscing about the good old days of the 180 Forces for a while and I thought that it would be a cool thing to bring back, and even make it more advanced than it was, since everything seems possible nowadays. I just loved the 180 air unit because it has the transparent bottom, it epitomizes the idea of walking on air. At a later stage I mixed in some of my other all-time favorite concepts, the huarache inner bootie and the Air Raid straps to kinda pay tribute to the great history of Nike basketball shoes, before the next Lebrons start writing a completely new history of their own.