NIKE / CONVERSE
Setting a New Industry Standard in Color Process & Design for a Competitive Global Brand Leader
Client: NIKE
About Nike’s Innovation (“Space”) Kitchen: The boundary-defying design think tank that continues to push the iconic brand to new heights of athletic functionality and cultural currency. The Space Kitchen is part of Nike’s Advanced Research and Development group, positioned at the center of the company’s drive toward innovation. Thousands of ideas have been developed and tested inside the Space Kitchen, and the team is central to keeping Nike at the forefront of the industry for global athletes and consumers.
Challenge:
Introduce, Test and Launch Transformative 3D Color Printing Process and Platform to Facilitate Leading-Edge Design, Boost Creativity and Accessibility, and Improve Confidence in Nike Brand Pitches and Innovation
Results:
Introduced a new creative process and rapid prototyping technology to support fully fleshed-out, imaginative design concepts that have markedly improved pitches and confidence among Nike’s partners, influencers and vendors; confirmed $1M in annual savings through the implementation of an internal platform that enabled agility and keeps innovation in-house; achieved prototyping at a rate 10x faster than traditional methods due to 3D printing, rapid iteration, and dramatically reduced revision cycles; enabled iconic designer Tinker Hatfield to create previously impossible shapes and bring ideas to life in full color by connecting design to 3D technology.
Overview:
Having introduced 3D color printing innovation to LAIKA, I created a proposal for a similar new process at Nike. The goal was to develop a creative 3D printing platform that would expand the accessibility of Nike’s Space Kitchen for all designers, facilitating the creation of new physical prototypes. I introduced 3D color printing to the Space Kitchen team and supported a small group of designers in exploring and defining the right tech and software.
Obstacle:
3D printing and prototyping at Nike was traditionally outsourced to achieve more consistency and higher-end final products.
The company was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to support the Nike Space Kitchen team in achieving the precise quality and translation to express their designs. By comparison, Adidas is a market leader in 3D printing, which Nike is striving to be more competitive with.
Tory’s Solution:
I helped Nike transition from current-to-future state by spearheading an entirely new process and platform for 3D innovation versus imitating competitors’ capabilities.
This solution included art direction and project management for a rotating cross-functional team of 12-15 staff members (selected by expertise per project) and supervision of 3D design modelers across the Space Kitchen, Air Jordan and Explore Innovation teams. Creative platforms were developed and integrated with 3D printing processes that were then deeply embedded across Nike’s standard design workflow, ensuring a much broader range of designers at the company had access to the technology.
Bringing this to life also meant discovering the specific technical potential of Nike’s machines and pioneering creative new specifications to produce designs beyond current capabilities. This required collaboration with vendors and other third parties to support the next generation of innovation in 3D printing packages through expanded material opportunities, flexible surface expansions, and diverse file potential for beta users with an evolving partnership between third-party vendors and Nike.
My best work is Top Secret.
When NIKE heard about my Oscar-winning 3D printing innovations, they invited me to collaborate with legendary shoe designer Tinker Hatfield in their Top Secret “Space Kitchen”
I sincerely wish I could show you more of this groundbreaking work, but my laces are tied.
Or, as we say at Nike “KEEP IT TIGHT”.
“I had the pleasure of collaborating with Tory on several Advanced Innovation projects at Nike from 2018-2020. During this time, I was consistently impressed by her creativity, boundless enthusiasm, and contagious positive energy.”
— Jason Baskin, Nike