In July 2014, I was approached to design a special edition Converse Chuck Taylor for the community of Columbus, Indiana. Chuck Taylor is from Columbus, Indiana, which is a town that has been touted as the "Midwestern Mecca of Architecture." The town has two high schools, Columbus East and Columbus North whose team colorways correspond with the chosen sneaker colors. The sneaker was commissioned to bring awareness to Chuck Taylor's legacy and to unite the community of Columbus. At the beginning of the project, At the start, I didn't receive much direction and the following images will show my thought process from the very beginning to my communication with designers at Converse to create the final product. At a break-even price of $59.99, 4,400 units were sold during a month (November 9, 2014 - December 9, 2014) on a pre-order basis through one Columbus retailer which ammounted to just under $250,000 wholesale dollars for Converse.

In the above sketches, and below digital rendering, the "Chuck Taylor Court" concept really started to come together after a lot of back and forth between myself and the Columbus team consisting of the Mayor, retailer, and the IU Fashion Design Head. I wanted to combine four main points of emphasis in the design: basketball, Chuck Taylor, Columbus (Columbus "Dancing C" is the town logo), and the state of Indiana. Basketball is king in Indiana and I explored a lot of different ways we could combine those four points in a clean way by keeping the sport at the very core of the design.

Any critique, criticism, suggestions on any portion of the work would be appreciated!