The Future of Footwear: Nike is Searching for the Next Great Designer

D'Wayne Edwards sketched his first pair of sneakers when he was just 11-years old. If you've got what he's got, you just might have a shot at becoming one of Nike's next big shoe designers.

As a middle school student in Inglewood, CA, Edwards had a knack for illustrating his life using a No. 2 pencil and a clean sheet of paper, but when his imagination shifted to his shoes, he knew he'd found his calling.

"I just had a gift to be able to draw anything, and for some reason I gravitated towards the feet," Edward says. "Over the course of middle school and high school I started falling in love with sneakers, started doing more and more customization of my own, and eventually became known as 'the shoe guy' in high school."

This unusual moniker stuck with Edwards throughout adolescence. At 17, he decided to forge a path through the uncharted territory of footwear design, ignoring his guidance counselor's advice to give up art and enter the Army. It wasn't until Edwards found a small ad in the newspaper for a Reebok design contest that he realized a living could be made from his undying passion.

That was in 1988. Today, after climbing the ranks from entry-level designer at LA Gear to spearheading the footwear division for iconic urban designer Karl Kani, Edwards now calls the shots as the footwear design director of Nike's Jordan Brand—and he intends to bring up a new generation of talented artists behind him.

The 2009 Future Sole Design Competition is Edwards' gift to one of Nike's largest community of fans, and is a young footwear designer's dream come true. Teens ages 14 to 19 who are passionate about sneakers and have a flare for design, now have a chance to pull out their sketches and show Nike they've got what it takes.

A team of designers from Jordan and Nike will judge original shoe designs based on creativity and innovation. One design will be selected for each brand, awarding two grand prize winners a whopping $5,000 in computer equipment, roundtrip airfare to the Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton, OR, and plenty of publicity on the Future Sole website for friends (and future clients) to see.

This year, the public will decide which designers move on to the final round in each category, and they've even added a women's competition to give the ladies an opportunity to flex their artistic muscle.

"The idea was to get more women in the process," Edwards says. "That's a huge problem. Typically, women go into fashion design instead of product design and they're usually skewed that way in high school. What we're trying to do for women is the same thing we're trying to do with the men, is just to say, 'Hey, you can do this as well.'"
For Edwards, the Future Sole Design Competition is just an extension of the legacy he hopes to leave behind.

"What I tell my designers is, your product is going to be here longer than you are, but the impact that you'll have on people's lives is going to last a whole lot longer," Edwards says. "My motto is if I help you, you have to help two more people. That keeps the chain going, and so far it's working out really well."

What are you waiting for? Visit www.futuresole.com for more details, and be sure to submit your lucky entry by July 1, 2009.