Tony Hardman was part of our original judging team for the Project Bluefoot x Air Jordan Design Competition. His unconventional route into the footwear industry took him from working retail to freelancing at Jordan Brand and eventually working at Skechers. And now? Say hello to your newest Nike Employee, Tony Hardman…

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Matt DeAlmeida provides us with his first-hand narrative in our exclusive Nike Future Sole Experience series covering his Swoosh chartered plane trip up to Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton, OR for the annual Nike-sponsored footwear design competition for high school students. Continue reading for DeAlmeida’s complete Future Sole recap, including exclusive concept sketches of his winning leaf-inspired Nike design.

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Next up in our exclusive Nike Future Sole Experience series is a first-hand account by finalist Ethan Dean on what it was like making the trip up to Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton, OR for the annual Nike-sponsored footwear design competition run by D’Wayne Edwards, Design Director at Jordan Brand. Continue reading for Dean’s complete Future Sole recap, including exclusive concept sketches and renderings of his re-worked Nike Hyperflight design.

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Project Bluefoot has exclusively invited all four Nike Future Sole 2009 Finalists to share their first-hand experience on the annual Nike-sponsored design competition and trip up to Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton, OR. Today, our series launches with 2009 Future Sole Finalist: Daniel Gold. Continue reading for Gold’s complete Future Sole recap, including exclusive rendering images of his Melo M6 re-design.

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Project Bluefoot has teamed up exclusively with Counter Kicks.com to present our Lifestyle LeBron James concept shoes. Each designer will essentially “takeover” the Counter Kicks shoe silhouette logo with their Lifestyle LeBron product and have their complete design work and backstory showcased on the site over the next couple weeks. Then, come back here and we’ll provide a full recap at the end. You can view our initial posted concept here. Next on tap is our main event: LeBron James Basketball Concepts with judges Jason Petrie and Ken Link coming soon.

The Project Bluefoot x Air Jordan Design Competition is now complete. Our 2 guest judges – Jason Mayden (Senior Designer at Jordan Brand) and D’Wayne Edwards (Design Director at Jordan Brand) – graciously lent us their design eyes and ears over the past few months to review and critique our debut Project Bluefoot Footwear Design Competition highlighting an Air Jordan theme challenge. A mass came to play. Many challenged. One won. To get the official inside scoop on the finalist concepts and our Air Jordan winner, we now turn over the transmission to Jason Mayden and D’Wayne Edwards who have provided a detailed feedback review of each challenger and selected our ultimate Project Bluefoot Air Jordan Design winner: Tom Matic. Continue reading…

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Project Bluefoot friend Mark Kokavec (Senior Footwear Design Manager at Under Armour) is currently holding his own sneaker design competition in conjunction with SLAM and we thought you should know. The design challenge? “Design a basketball shoe for a professional athlete. Choose an athlete from the past or present and create a signature design based on their attitude, position, or skill-set. Consider the upper and bottom designs and how to solve for problems such as traction, cushioning, lateral movements, ankle support, etc. The winner will be published in SLAM magazine.” You can view more details on Mark’s competition here. For some brief backstory, check this piece written by another PBF friend, Chris O’Leary from SLAM. You need to be quick: the deadline is Oct 31st, 2009.

Project Bluefoot recently chatted with Michael DiTullo, Design Director at Converse and Molly Carter, Director of Sports Communications at Converse on the design of the new Converse Weapon Evo. Check out the full-length, in-depth feature as posted on our daily-updated sneaker site, Counter Kicks: Part 1 / Part 2

WITNESS: The ultimate global footwear design competition to create a performance basketball shoe for LeBron James. Time is ticking. Do you have what it takes to go the distance? Submit your sneaker concept now into Project Bluefoot’s latest star-studded design challenge to be judged by Jason Petrie (Senior Footwear Designer at Nike Basketball) and Ken Link (Former Creative Director at Nike Basketball). You only have until Oct. 25th, Midnight (PST) to enter. WE ARE ALL WITNESSES…

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Think you’ve got the flash and dash to outfit LeBron James’ feet off-court? Fill out the form below to enter your “LeBron Lifestyle” concept into Project Bluefoot’s latest footwear design competition. Top entires will be featured on the PBF home page and our daily-updated sneaker site, Counter Kicks. Submission post for our performance basketball challenge is coming next week! Read more to submit.

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The Top 5 Project Bluefoot: Air Jordan Design Competition Finalists are…

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In our latest “Design Theory” segment, we talk with Jason Mayden, Senior Footwear Designer at Jordan Brand and designer of the Air Jordan 2009 and Chris Paul lines. Jason tells us how he got hired at Jordan Brand, talks about one of the best selling Nike shoes to date which he designed, gives us a glimpse into his daily work schedule, and finally gives plenty of advice to aspiring designers looking to break into the industry and push it forward.

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Get your votes in now! Public Voting for the Project Bluefoot x Air Jordan Design Competition ends on October 5th, 2009, at Midnight EST! You will decide the Top 5 rated design concepts that D’Wayne Edwards, Design Director at Jordan Brand, and Jason Mayden, Senior Footwear Designer at Jordan Brand, will review, critique, and ultimately crown as the winner of the PBF:ID Air Jordan theme. Don’t wait ’til the last minute. VOTE NOW!

Voting for the Project Bluefoot x Air Jordan Design Competition has begun! We are teaming up to host the public vote with our just-launched, daily-updated sneaker site: Counter Kicks.com

The entire Project Bluefoot writing staff will share dual-duties to push all the latest breaking sneaker info and funnel expanded interviews and greater coverage of the footwear industry on Counter Kicks. And Project Bluefoot will continue to be the design-saturated industry hotspot you’ve come to love. Check out our new site and vote now for your favorite Air Jordan Design Finalists: http://counterkicks.com

Visit the Project Bluefoot: Forums for more info on this design competition.

To compliment our Basketball Footwear design competition, we are running a mini 3-week design competition to conceptualize a Lifestyle product for LeBron James.

- Designers may submit up to 3 Concept Boards for their presentation.
- Design concepts should be submitted in .jpg format
- Maximum resolution should be no greater than 1000 x 800 pixels.

Design Deadline: October 10th, 2009.

The top LeBron Lifestyle concepts will be posted on the Project Bluefoot home page.

Visit the Project Bluefoot: Forums for more information.

A Project Bluefoot conversation with D’Wayne Edwards, Jordan Brand Footwear Design Director. Learn how D’Wayne got into the business, his tips for aspiring designers wanting to break into the footwear industry, what a typical work day looks like for a Footwear Design Director, his reflections on designing an Air Jordan shoe, and why design mentorship is so important.

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The Top 15 Design Finalists in the Project Bluefoot / Air Jordan XXV Design Competition are…

- Alvin Huang
- Austin Jermacans
- Ben Adams-Keane
- Brian Moughty
- Doug VanderValk
- Frederic Roy
- Joe Sattler
- John Lee
- Karabo Anoh
- Sindri P. Sigurdsson
- Titus Ares
- Tom Matic
- Weixian Wang
- Yuan Jiang
- Yurri Mial

Continue reading for Air Jordan Design Concept image boards and descriptions… (more…)

Get your Swoosh line art dusted off.

The next Project Bluefoot: Intelligent Design Competition challenge is here.

Your assignment: Design a high-performance, Nike Basketball signature shoe for The King – LeBron James.

Judging your design concepts will be Jason Petrie, Senior Footwear Designer at Nike Basketball and architect of the latest rendition in the LeBron James signature line, the Nike Air Max LeBron VII.

Official design competition rules & prizes to be posted soon.

To enter, simply register a username on our forums