So my secret project came out. They're custom shoes for Artsprojekt. You can see them here.
I had to keep this under wraps because it's a new collaboration between Zazzle and Keds. They had womans Keds before, but now they have mens ProKeds. I got a pair to customize the old fashioned way, and I had to take a lot of photographs of the process to use in a video that goes along with the launch. I wasn't in love with the colors after painting the shoes and wearing them, they looked too loud, so when I did the painting I went for a more subtle palette. I'm happy with the way they came out. The shoes themselves can be customized in many different ways. This was just the setup I thought looked the best, but you can change all the different rubber parts, the stitching, the laces, etc.
Shoes are one of the only things I don't like illustrations on, which made this an interesting challenge. I typically wear simple shoes. I think it's easy for shoes to look tacky with drawings on them, like Ed Hardy territory. I had to come up with a way to avoid that at all costs. I wanted more of an illustrated design then my illustrations applied to a shoe. I suppose the difference is you want the drawings to be secondary to the design of the shoe, instead of overpowering it. I hope some folks buy these, I get a little cut of each pair sold, so uhhh...tell your friends :)
