Status [the blog]

Here he shares his experience:

As you all know, i was a winner of the 1st annual NIKE Futuresole Design Competition

my assignment was to create a NIKE Flight basketball shoe, and Ben(the other winner) had to create Force i had to make it as lightweight as possible i call it the Nike Flight Comanche, due to the inspiration i took from the Comanche helicopter THIS WAS MY DESIGN ;D, all done in photoshop

NIKE paid for everything

we stayed in the Ace Hotel in Portland (which is five stars) this was our room, and they had a present waiting for me!

it was a box that consisted of the following

2 Nike hats with the futuresole logo embroidered on them

2 shirts with the futuresole logo on them "Just Do It" (a novel)

2 sketch books a hoodie w/ the logo on it our passes for the campus and a pair of AF1 mids w/ the futuresole logo lasered on the heel, and my signature lasered on the strap

DAY 2: this was the big day, we started early at 8 a.m., when the Navigator picked us up and took us to the campus where we were met by a camera crew

there we had breakfast with my competitor, our 2 mentors Justin Taylor, and Marc Dolce and the 2 main organizers of the contest, Ginny Hopkirk, and D'Wayne Edwards(who designed the XXII and ALL of the Carmelos)

after breakfast we split up, and i went with my mentor, Marc Dolce, and he went w/ his

Marc took me to his office and showed me around his building, which was COVERED in sneakers! and there i saw them, in his office, THE YEEZYS no sample sizes though, all samples were made in his size, a 13 i believe

Ben went first, he really understood basketball and the players and he had this BRILLIANT speech about evolution and the inspiration of his shoe

SO I WAS REALLY NERVOUS i didnt talk as much as he did, but i guess my design spoke for itself

so then when we were both done, we went outside to wait for the judges to deliberate outside they had beer and sodas, and a barbeque complete with a DJ and we were getting snapped by various photographers, and Sole Collector

AND THEN THE JUDGES CAME OUT!!!, then they went back inside to talk some more, at this point i'm sweating bullets SO THEY FINALLY CAME OUT TO DECLARE THE WINNER this gentleman(who designed the XVIs, all the way to the XXIs) began by introducing us and thanking the sponsors

the Dwayne Edwards came out and was announcing the winner when he said "YOU BOTH WON!" which is SOOO GREAT, cause not only did we win the Macbook, which was the grand prize, but we also get the 80gb Ipod, which was second prize!

then Ginny Hopkirk came to announce the prizes and a special surprise prize :)

she read from a letter that said something along the lines of:

"Congratulations Futuresole winner, as part of your prize, in the near future, there will be a special meeting set up between you and I. signed, TINKER HATFIELD"!!!!!!!! OOHHHH SSHHHHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*THE WINNERS CIRCLE*

as you can kinda tell, my model is kinda incomplete, it has no laces, so to make it up to me, my mentor made me 2 more, one black with the corrections, and a WHITE colorway!

the perfect ending to the perfect day!

WHAT A SPECTACULOR EXPERIENCE Nike and its employees are the most genuine, generous people ive ever dealt with I enjoyed every second i spent at that campus I met so many people and got so many bussiness cards, this opened SO many doors for me

Thank Yous:

Marc Dolce: my mentor who helped me along the way and got all of my designs printed up and hooked me up with all that cool stuff, one of the coolest guys ill ever meet

Dwayne Edwards: Jordan designer and Contest organizer who showed me his office and gave me advice and told me some secrets about the future of Jordan ;D

Ginny Hopkirk: Founder of the contest, who started organizing it a year and a half ago, and made all the arrangements for us

Ben Adams-Keane: my competitor who did a hell of a job, and deserved it

THANK YOU NIKE!!!!!