I began to design Hispanic & pop culture inspired sneaker concepts on PowerPoint. Wait what?
I’ve been a multicultural marketer for over 15 years, mostly in Hispanic music, sports, lifestyle and entertainment. I grew up on the border of US/Mexico.
As stress relief, I began to create sneaker concepts that celebrate Hispanic culture. I get inspiration from my favorite Mexican candies, music, or work on fake brand collabs.
Warning: I am not a graphic designer, so they aren’t great.
If I am not a designer, I’m a marketer, why should I even do this right?
Well I took the advice of custom shoe designer Jake Danklefs, after working with him on the two versions of our custom Corona Extra Texas Longhorn sneakers.
I told him: “Man, I wish I knew how to mockup shoes”. I had sent him some really bad, cut and paste mockups of what I had in mind for a shoe design, he said: “Why don’t you just do what you sent me? It doesn’t matter (that you don’t know how to use photoshop), you’ll figure it out, eventually you’ll get better. Sometimes you just have to start”. Wow, talk about some great advice. Listening to at Gary Vaynerchuck talk about content didn’t help stop me either. Thanks Gary and Jake. If you want to see the Texas Longhorn Corona shoe, you can watch Darren Rovell unbox the shoe here or visit my profile. If you would like to know more about custom shoe designer Jake Danklefs, click here.
To get started, I took the one program I know how to use: PowerPoint. Yep, you read that right, and began to play around with shoe images and concepts. My career has been in Hispanic marketing, so it’s no surprise that I automatically reverted to my cultural roots for inspiration.
My first shoe concept was a El Chapulin Colorado inspired shoe. Very basic. I changed the colors on the shoe to make it look like El Chapulin’s famous costume, and named it the Chapulin Supreme. It’s based on a NIKE SB Gato. So basically, I was turning a Gato into a grasshopper.
To get a reaction, maybe I was looking for validation, I posted it on social media.
For 12 days in a row, I tagged influencers on a picture that showed a Cat, in reference to the shoe, and a grasshopper, in reference to El Chapulin through an account that had no followers and no previous social activity. You would be surprised how many Cat vs Grasshopper pictures exist online. It seems like they have had a long standing spat for centuries. Here is an example of the pictures I would send them.
Imagine randomly getting tagged on 12 Cat vs Grasshopper pictures on social? Some accounts blocked me, random people liked the pictures, and I tracked what worked and what didn’t. I’ll share more about what I learned about those 12 Cat vs. Grasshopper posts in my next article.
Then I revealed the shoe.
Not amazing right? The 42 views on my account would support that assumption, but I kept going. I got a little better.
For the third design I had more luck. The shoe concept was actually posted on wearemitu on Instagram. Thanks Mitu! For that shoe concept, I picked the much-loved baked goods brand Bimbo for inspiration. As a base I used the Nike SB Papa Bear. If you are not familiar with Bimbo they use a fluffy white bear in their creative. I posted the shoe concept on social media, Bimbo bakeries liked it on social, they DM’d me. Maybe I was onto something? So I kept going.
Since then, I have created a few more designs, most of them inspired by Mexican Candy, Like Pulparindo or Duvalin. Or my 80’s kid influences of BMX and Skate. I work on these early mornings or on the weekend, or when I need that mental break.
It’s fun creating all these concepts. It relaxes my mind, allowing me to refocus my energy back into my job and family. It has also helped me learn more about sneaker culture, key influencers, industry opportunities, and overall more about me.
During Covid, I think a lot of us are more nostalgic, it’s re-grounded us, connected us more with past friends, with family, and for me, learn more about who I am, made me think of what legacy I want to leave behind.
I don’t know what I’ll be remembered for when I’m gone, but I hope my kids see examples like this, and think, I can do it, or at least I’ll try.
Here are a few more examples of the concepts:
I’ve also tapped into Reggaeton.
If you would like to see more sneaker concepts, please follow @hablodesign on Instagram. I hope these images help inspire someone to get started or even bring some of these concepts to life. Maybe we can actually produce one to raise funds to support Latino fashion/design. If not, I hope you get a smile out of them. I do.
