Art of the Game, The Ultimate Sneaker Design Contest

Let me start off by saying, I'm not one for art contests or competitions. I feel that art should be made for yourself, not to see how you compare to other artists. When I first heard about the contest from Canvvs, I was iffy about joining for that reason. After some introspection, I decided to join as a learning experience and to see how far I could push my skills in a shortened time frame.

The first step of the process was coming up with an idea. I threw around a few concepts, including the burnt design I settled on. Some others included a fire and ice theme, an homage to NYC, and another that incorporated computer components. Realizing that I was short on time, I settled on a burnt concept, figuring that I could knock it out relatively quick.

Once the shoes arrived, I dip-dyed the pair a darker shade of grey and then created a grey-to-black gradient to show the progression of the burning. Next, I added some burned away sections to the front so you can see the 'underlying' texture. Finally, I added stylistic flames to the back portion of the shoes.

At first glance, the design may seem simple and if you've been in the sneaker customizing community for any time, derivative of work that has been done countless times before. That said, the design is indicative of my mindset going into the competition. I was feeling burnt out from this past year. It sounds like a good problem to have, but the countless corporate bulk projects from the past few months have exhausted me and repeating the same design over and over becomes extremely tedious and mind-numbing. Channeling that burnout into a visual representation of the feeling helped give this project a more human touch. The flames can also be symbolic of the passion to continue painting, despite the burnout, almost like a phoenix rising out of the ashes.

Looking back at the project, I was happy with the end result and the time taken to complete it. If given more time, I'm sure I would have come up with a much better theme, but so would have everyone else who competed. I didn't make it into the top finalists, but it was a great learning experience and I met a bunch of artists that I wouldn't have connected with if it wasn't for this event. Thank you to everyone at Canvvs and Rakuten for bringing this competition to life and to allowing me to participate.