Bringing Flavor to Footwear
Crafting Custom Sneakers Inspired By Some of our Favorite Restaurant Websites
It’s impossible to exist in the design space in our modern world without running into designer shoes, exclusive colorways, limited merch drops and collab shoe designs. The global sneaker market generated an impressive $7.75b in 2023 according to MarketWatch and is expected to grow at least another 5% year over year. Building off some of our previous work with restaurant-inspired art, two of our designers, Kai and Chris, decided to try their hand at designing some Nike AirJordan Ones in the style and aesthetic of their favorite restaurant websites. Chris found an excellent Photoshop template on Behance that lent itself very nicely to adding colors and patterns to shoes easily, the template will be linked at the bottom of this article if you want to try it for yourself!
BAR PASQUALE
Bar Pasquale is an upscale but fun and casual, sicilian-based pizza concept in Lower Manhattan. Their site uses lots of strong colors, but with good balance. It was key for this design to make sure the red, green, and yellow were used equally as much as possible. I went with the leaf texture instead of the checkered pattern also present on the site as I thought it fit the irregular shape better. Lastly I used highlighted stitching to reflect the heavy border use on the site.
SCHUSSBOOM BREWING
Schussboom Brewing is a small-bath craft brewery serving artisan snack and beers on tap in Reno, NV. The color balance on this design was especially tricky. The light blue is the main color used and the purple and teal are only used in large blocks but sparingly. It was important not to overwhelm the lighter color with heavy use of the dark colors, but also not to make the dark feel like only accents, again the highlighted stitching does a lot of work here.
MESIBA
Mesiba is a Tel-Aviv-inspired contemporary Levantine restaurant in Brooklyn by Chef Eli Buli.
This one turned out a bit more subtle than the site itself, and I think this color palette translates best to a shoe design. The subtle letters texture plays nicely with the solid color of the same shade, and the darker accents reflect the overall color balance of the site.
Sneakers Designed By: Kai Malowany
HONEYMOON CHICKEN
Honeymoon Chicken is an elevated fried-chicken concept located in the DC-Metro area. I personally loved the overall dark vibe of this site and the pops of neon colors. Felt this color scheme would look amazing transformed into a sneaker, especially for a darker colored sneaker. Plus, the emblem on the back of the shoe really helps with the extra pop of color.
LADY NOMADA
Lady Nomada is a Baja kitchen, specializing in street tacos and playful margs & cocktails. Their website is so playful with lots of fun illustrations and patterns. I wanted to make sure that same energy translated into my sneaker design as well. The muted cream color base of the shoe, their energetic color palette, and their wave texture really help tie this shoe back to their website.
RAD RADISH
Rad Radish is a restaurant in San Francisco that focuses on healthy food that is affordable and tastes as good as it makes you feel. As you can see from their site, their branding is top notch. Their vegetable illustration pattern is the main focal point, with elements from it being scattered across the site. Just like the site, I wanted to make the pattern and the mission of “Healthy Food” be the focal point of this sneaker.
Sneakers Designed By: Chris Nervegna
Once again, we would like to thank Sports Templates for creating this amazing Photoshop template and providing it to the public for free. We highly recommend downloading it and transforming your favorite restaurant into a sneaker.
