Good Morning POU!
Today’s featured designer is E. Scott Morris
E. Scott Morris began his 20 year career designing athletic shoes with Reebok in 1990 after serving in the United States Marine Corp. He received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Product Design from Michigan State University in 1989. At Reebok, he rose to the position of Sr. Level Designer responsible for designing footwear product across various lines with emphasis on basketball and M’s Training.
Morris created signature products for athletes like Shaquille O’Neal (Shaq 4,6, Hoop Sandal & DunkMob) and Emmitt Smith (ES22 Trainer/Cleat).
Just as free agents move on to a new team with a fatter contract, Morris took his talents to Nike where he became a Design Director and a major factor in Nike’s ability to grow its cleats business from $58 million to $168 million in 6.3 years. He was the key designer on the Michael Vick Signature Cleat series, LaDanian Tomlinson’s LT21, A. Pujols signature model, plus MLB, NCAA and NFL Pro Bowl specialty footwear.
Since 2009, he has served as a Nike Design Manager where he cultivates and mentors young designers, assisting them with navigating successful career paths such as his own.
You may not have stood in line for hours for a pair of new kicks, but you’ve probably seen the lines snake around shoe stores in anticipation of a debut, and heard that thousands show up at trade shows to discuss and dissect the latest styles. Competitions, collectors and blogs devote themselves to explanation and celebration. The sneaker is likened to the cult-like following surrounding Apple products.
“Companies didn’t realize the consumers were going to become the creators,” says Morris, who now calls himself a design alchemist. “That had never happened. Now, the culture is beginning to convert itself. In the next five years, (PENSOLE graduates) are going to have an immediate impact on what this industry becomes—and it’s going to go global.”
Below: E. Scott Morris (center grey shirt), a 20-year veteran of the sneaker industry, says the first World Sneaker Championships will become “a part of American sneaker mythology” (yes, there is a World Sneaker Championship!)
Stories from the 2014 Sneaker World Championships
Who knew that nestled among craft breweries and soccer-loving hipsters, Portland stakes its claim as the cradle of athletic footwear design? Turns out, the Rose City could just as easily be dubbed Sneaker City. It’s well-known that Nike and Adidas America are headquartered here, but don’t forget about East Coast brands like Under Armour and New Balance, which also own design houses in the hotbed. Got a tech idea? Pack your bags for Silicon Valley. Got a sneaker design? Book your ticket to PDX.
This summer, Portland was also home to the first-ever World Sneaker Championships, hosted at PENSOLE, the only footwear-specific design academy in North America founded by D’Wayne Edwards. (The name is a combination of a pencil, the most important tool for a designer, and a shoe’s sole.) Take 30 students from 13 countries, eight footwear brands, one legendary sneaker designer and stash them in a 4,700-square foot studio for four weeks and you’ve got Project Runway: Sneaker Edition.
Talent scouts from Nike, Jordan, Under Armour and Adidas gathered in downtown Portland on Aug. 15. That’s when the 30 aspiring footwear designers in what’s dubbed the World Sneaker Championship presented designs for athletic shoes to a panel of industry experts.
Maher Jemili, 30, comes from a small village in Tunisia, Africa, where locals live off $3,000 a year. To pay for his $2,000 plane ticket to the United States, Jemili’s mother sold jewelry that had been in the family for generations. He speaks French, Arabic and broken English. When he can’t figure out exactly how to describe his passion for sneakers, he has a tendency to throw up his hands, widen his eyes and exclaim, “Wow!”
He sketches a pair of pink Jordans in honor of his little sister, who he says blends feminity with fierceness. During the presentation he wears his first pair of Jordans, the Jordan Melo M6 Future Sole with a color never sold at retail, given to him by Edwards, an action that moved Jemili to tears when he opened them. Edwards says he has more than 400 pairs of sneakers but has no problem giving them away.
Maher Jemili (representing Tunisia) for Air Jordan
Ako Xiang (representing China) for Under ArmourEach of the boxes represents a star PENSOLE pupil of the past who left the school and took a job in the shoe industry. And each of the brilliant young designers who pass by every day dreams of having a shoebox on that wall someday. Someday soon, too.
Adesanmi is at PENSOLE, located in downtown Portland, Oregon, along with 29 other competitors for a strange-but-cool first-year contest you probably haven’t heard of: the World Sneaker Championship. Over the course of a few weeks, young design professionals from all over the world have been drawing, building and presenting what they hope is the next big thing in kicks, for a group of industry professionals serving as judges. The judges are legit — with Nike and Adidas in town, it’s a who’s who of innovators. They know talent when they see it.
And Adesanmi has talent. She’s exactly what PENSOLE founder D’Wayne Edwards, formerly a designer at Nike, was looking for when he founded the academy in 2010. The school’s intensive short-term curriculum was the type of master class he wished he’d been fortunate enough to attend years ago. Mainly, though, Edwards, who is black, was tired of looking around, internally and externally, and not seeing more faces resembling his own. And there were rarely women in the room during his previous jobs in the shoe industry.
“There’s a lack of females designing athletic footwear and almost zero black female designers in the entire industry,” Edwards said.
Adesanmi, 23, understands the obstacles, yet remains undeterred. Her demanding Nigerian parents expected she’d become a doctor, lawyer or engineer, but she was always more curious about design. Her family came to the U.S. when she was an infant and raised her in Maryland. She went to N.C. State and graduated in 2013 with a design degree. When an offer popped up in New York City to design eyewear, Adesanmi dashed off to the big city. But when her position was eliminated recently, she was stuck in a lease and unsure of the best path forward. She applied for the sneaker championship and got in. She’s here because she thinks she may be the next great shoe designer in the world.
“I’ve always been interested in footwear,” she said. “I just didn’t necessarily think I could make a career out of it.”
Yet every one of the 30 candidates, selected by Edwards from a blue-chip crop of young designers from around the globe, has a chance to do this for a living. The winner of the World Sneaker Championship will be announced in Las Vegas and gets a WWE-style white championship belt as a trophy. But the real prize is a rare opportunity for any young professional: a direct line with some of the kings and queens of their field.
When the men and women arrived two weeks ago, they were divided into teams. Each team had three footwear designers and one color and materials designer. Adesanmi competed as the latter. On Friday, each team made a final presentation to the judges, with only eight individuals advancing. “I was impressed and inspired by Victoria’s desire to learn and determination to improve,” said Edwards, who hopes to launch a class exclusively for women designers next year. “She was usually the first in every morning, ready to soak up what the day had in store for her. I am confident that if she continues to go hard, she will reach her goals.”
Yet when the judges announced their top eight, Adesanmi missed the cut. But the trip only confirmed that she’s landed on the right profession. “It makes it seem like it’s possible,” Adesanmi said. “Before, I didn’t know if it was tangible. When you don’t see it, you don’t know if it’s tangible.”
In fact, it’s very tangible. Despite not qualifying for the World Sneaker Championship, Adesanmi was hand-selected by Adidas for a follow-up intensive course on color materials and finishes designing. Class starts Sept. 2. There won’t be a title belt at the end; maybe just a new career.
“I look forward to the day she calls me to let me know the good news,” Edwards said.