Sometimes You Don’t Have Time to Explain

Giving Designers a Lesson in Nike DNA

Jeff Henderson
Sep 9, 2018 · 7 min read

Let’s start with the reality that there’s a passive aggressiveness to Portland that is troublesome for foreigners to the home of Nike HQ. So when I joined the NSW Design team and I’m told that two of my creatives are having trouble grasping the code of Nike I assumed correctly that they haven’t been told this directly, nor have they been given any insight as to how to improve their situation.

When I finally observed the women in action I agreed with the assessment that they were somewhat clueless with respect to the history, heritage and ethos of Nike Design. Their proposed design work in color and material weren’t bad, but the connective tissue that was necessary in NSW — a division built on the archives of Nike — were missing at every decision point.

The material designer was fresh into the industry, but wise in her understanding of functionality and manufacturing. The color designer had worked on children’s footwear at a smaller brand and was adept at executing with respect to our aggressive timelines. Each designer was hired into Nike Design to deliver their own POV to elevate the product they would be touching.

Unfortunately, less than a year into their jobs and they were frustrated because they felt like they were being told what to do and how to do it. On the other side of the coin the marketing team was equally frustrated because they felt like they had to tell them what to do and how to do it.

Yet, within two days off seeing their work I quickly understood the main problem — they knew nothing about Nike. I mean nothing. Not the company, but the culture.

They had no history in sneaker culture or the brand and they assumed this would be totally fine because they were hired to help take the brand some place new. They also assumed that simply showing up and knowing how to do their job was enough to Han the respect and support from their peers.

Not a solid approach.

So I brought them into a room together and assigned them a project for the whole of NSW Footwear. The assumptions of heritage and history within Nike Design were like tales passed down from generation to generation. We needed a document that defined and explained the importance of chromaflare and volt and the Safari print so that we could all align on their significance to the work we were doing.

Amazingly, they agreed. Each understood the structure that this information would bring to every designer’s work. They were happy to help put this project together.

Over the next six months.

I laughed out loud.

I told them that they would be presenting their document to the team in two months.

Their smiles evaporated quickly.

For the next ten minutes I patiently listened to every excuse they gave me as to why a project of this magnitude would have no way of fitting into their already packed schedules. Two months wouldn’t be enough time to pull this information together if this was their full time job!

They were not wrong.

Unfortunately for them I saw it differently, so they had two months to develop a quantitative guide to Nike CGM (color, graphics and materials). I also didn’t have time to explain my reasoning in away that they would have appreciated. “Because I said so” was ultimately how I left that part of the conversation. I had a dozen other corporate fires to put out before the day was over.

As they fought every instinct to complain to their boss of less than a month, I then added on an element of difficulty that made the initial request seam small.

I’d already compiled a list of Nike veterans for them to interview over the first month so they would hear the stories directly from those individuals that lived through those important moments. They would need to find these total strangers on campus and meet with them in order to learn Nike’s heritage.

Their cumulative unhappiness was obvious, but they had already mastered the art of passive aggressiveness. They politely left the room and planned how they would get out of this rushed project. They decided to vent their frustrations to their more senior counterparts.

“That sounds amazing!” is what my veteran designers would tell them, because they were already fully aware of the project. I had told them that this was coming and they understood why it was needed. Their support was what I needed to get any form of an attempt out of these disgruntled creatives.

Savvy Veterans in NSW

So, unhappily, off they went.

First they interviewed Nelson Ferris, Nike historian who had been around since the 1970’s. Then they met with Sandy Boedecker and Sergio Lozano and Eric Avar and Tinker Hatfield and Mike Aveni and Peter Fogg and Amanda Briggs. Some conversations were only 15 minutes. Some lasted an hour.

“They were sooooo nice,” they’d say after every meeting. “And now I know why the shoe is colored that way.”

They were starting to get it.

While they had no idea what the significance of those conversations meant to their consumer, they better understood the DNA that the marketing team had been expecting them to build upon. They were learning the history of the icons — first hand.

Soon they discovered that they were leveling the playing field in their day-to-day job. When you’ve just finished interviewing Tinker Hatfield about the Air Max, it’s difficult to tell you how to color an Air Max. It’s not that a conversation makes you that enlightened or your product immediately authentic, but you no longer can be treated like someone who doesn’t know anything about the brand. You develop your own connectivity that comes from a place more rooted than the chatrooms of Niketalk or comment sections of Instagram.

Lucky for me that they didn’t just go buy one of the dozen books about Nike’s icons that were already published.

Two months after that painful meeting they threw a launch party of their findings. They put together a small book that every designer could keep at their desk in case they wanted know about the Max 95 or the Dunk.

Obviously, most of the team needed no such book.

But seeing the elephant print for the first time through their eyes was uplifting for everyone that struggled to find something new in what they’d known for years, even decades. They offered a fresh perspective that could not be overlooked.

And there was also the social currency of meeting the legends that created those icons. From now on when they were challenged about their material or color choice, they wouldn’t simply reference a shoe from the archive, they would talk about the actual history of the shoe from someone who lived through it. In two months they’d earned a since of credibility that might take years to develop.

Now they were free to grow or crash on their own merits, without the anchor of not understanding the rarified air they were breathing.

Luckily, they realized the awakening and credibility that this extra project brought them. They thanked me durning their launch party and apologized for not jumping in with both feet.

I can’t say I blamed them for not being enthusiastic about the added responsibility. Not all projects come from a place that considers the development and growth of the employee.

However, in this case I think everyone learned something — about themselves and the way in which we got work done.

And I could focus on whatever new fires were popping up.

And Them

Creative Consultancy

Jeff Henderson

Written by

Founder of And Them Creative Consultancy — Trying to focus on design, education, inclusion and family. I said trying.

And Them

And Them

Creative Consultancy

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