For my Negotiated Study module (and Dissertation) I chose to focus around the 'exclusive' Sneaker Culture, that I love and engage with myself. I decided to 'release' a limited edition sneaker, designing all the collateral along the way. Just to confirm, this is purely an 'appreciation' project of the brand I love deerly and the shoes won't actually be sold/released.

I started by thinking of ideas for the concept/design of the two shoes. At this point, the shoe model was completely open and it was totally down to me what I wanted to do. I started creating ideas and styles and I eventually came up with the 'Nike Pick n Mix pack', which will feature 'a number of shoes (mini-packs) based on Pick n Mix sweets.' The first (and only one I have designed) is the 'Strawberry Lace' pack, containing two Nike Air Max 90s - a Hyperfuse and an Engineered Mesh version. I designed the two shoes on Nike iD and ordered them through the normal order system, costing me £140 each pair.

My next step was to create a piece(s) of branding to represent the pack. I already had an idea where (on the shoe) I wanted the branding to go so I was always baring that in mind. I had the idea of a shoe lace wrapped around a strawberry rather quickly and I spent a while crafting it, only to find when it was the main focus, I couldn't get type to work around it, so I went back to the drawing board and created a piece of type-based branding, adapting NikeLab's current style, that the icon could work with.

When the shoes arrived after the six-week Nike iD process, I got my branding embroided into a small label and stitched in onto the tongue, creating a personal, individual shoe. Both pairs have the tongue label stitched on, as you will see later. Thanks to Ann at BritishLabels for creating the tongue labels.

At the same time, I started idea creation for the packaging. Continuing the strong 'Pick n Mix' visual theme, I bought two clear display boxes from Krate&Co, who kindly sent the boxes without the stock size label when I told them about my project. Display boxes are greatly appreciated in the Sneaker Culture, and it works well with the concept. I designed a selection of stickers, such as both forms of my branding and a 'Pick n Mix' banner, that I carefully applied to the packaging. Thanks to Loadzalabels for the stickers.

With my shoes and packaging fully designed, I then designed a series of 'print ads'. As I've previously mentioned, these would (in reality) be an exlcusive, limited edition sneaker. Throughout the following campaign, you will see I quoted a low production figure. The reason for this is that within the Sneaker culture, people crave for exclusivity and rarity. I personally have shoes limited as low as 100 pairs worldwide, and on release they would have sold out within seconds. In this current day and age, pairs limited in the thousands still sell out within seconds if the 'hype' (anticipation) is high enough. I 'expect' these shoes to sell out instantely, so general 'product' advertising would be 'pointless', so like many other sneaker releases, I chose to run with a teaser campaign, that would build up anticipation and prepare people for the release of the shoe. The idea of the shoe's limited nature and the concept behind the pack runs throughout each of the ads.

The next (and probably best/biggest) part of my project is the Social Media campaign. As a sneaker enthusiast, like many/most othes, Instagram is my favourite/preferred Social Media platform. The image-based nature suits my flare for photography and creative nature. All the big sneaker brands and collaborators (stores and people) have great Instagram accounts with a huge follow base - NikeLab, the innovatitive account for Nike has 326,000+ followers, and NikeSportswear has 864,000+, showing it's size. A lot of sneakers are 'revealed' on Instagram via very simple teaser campaigns, revealing more and more of the shoe through a series of photos. They aren't often very 'creative' and 'engaging' so my idea was to create something that hits them both those factors.

My idea was to create a beautiful parallax-esque 'wesbite' on Instagram, as the main platform for us sneakerheads, that I've called my 'InstaSite'. To set context, a new Instagram site would be created purely for this campaign/pack. Each week/day (depending on the stage of the campaign) content (individual Instagram images/posts) would be removed and new ones uploaded. One of the best features of the 'InstaSite' is that people can view the design as a feed 9as you can see above), and ad close up images when 'tapped' on. That allows for detail to be more easily seen as Instagram hinders the quality when in the feed view so content isn't always crisp. The first 'page' (left image on the both the above images) would be the original reveal. This is the most interactive part of the Insta campaign and my research has led me to believe it would be highly effective. The top image of the two shows it's original state on 'day 1'. The idea is that people would 'vote' for which 'part' of the shoe they want to be revealed. It would start with the silhouette of the shoe being spread over six Instagram squares, with one being revealed to start it off. People would vote by liking the image, which in turn would increase the awareness of the campaign (as people's likes are visible by all of their followers). Each day, the image with the most likes would be revealed - all the page content would be removed and reuploaded to show the chosen square. After 5 days, the full shoe would be revealed and the campaign would 'refresh' as of the following Monday. On the second page would be different angles more detailed photos of the first (Mens) colourway and a date (along with teaser images) to reveal the second (Womans) colourway. Without sounding repetative the campaign continues over five 'pages', all of which are 'live' on five of my trial accounts. If you would like to look at them all in more detail, please use the Instagram app on your phone and view @ragotrial, @ragotrial2 @ragotrial3, @ragotrial4 & @ragotrial5.

The Social Media campaign would end on the Desktop site being launched. The desktop site would be more of a true parallax website and would include a lot of the detail that was given through the Insta campaign, but in a more polished manor. I've noted the site to be theoretically 'launched' 16.02.15, with the shoes being released at 8AM on the following Saturday (21.02.15). The site would end with a countdown until that time then the site would refresh so the shoes could be purchased.

As I said above, when the countdown hits 0 0 0 0, the shoes would become purchasable, and the main idea of the site would become clearer. As I've also mentioned previously, limited edition sneakers often sell out in seconds. One bad thing about is that a lot of people who want them don't get them, due to the sheer lack of product and the amount of people buying the shoes just to sell on for (a lot) profit. I wanted both of these factors to be eliminated from my release. People would already know (if they paid attention) through the Instagram campaign that the release was not a conventional 'add to bag' sneaker release. When people scroll down, they would see a Pick n Mix sweet bag with a selection table below. The idea is that people would have to match Pick n Mix sweet combination with one of five of the people who have contributed to the 'Pick n Mix' pack so far. Each persona would carry a 'clue' - a quote from them about their preference. Each 'quote' raises in complexity - the first persona, as pictured in my design would be a simple one. Tinker Hatfield says 'all he ever eats at the Movies is Strawberry Laces', so if the user simply selects 'Strawberry Laces' and clicks #add to bag' they would get a congratulations screen. There would be '30' pairs per persona, so it would be fair. If someone matches a combination, they can share a second, easier quote (about that persona) with their friends on social media (twitter, instagram, facebook etc) to make it easier. The selections would get harder and harder, so the final one may be a combination of 7 of the 12 sweets. In terms of maths, there are 479,001,600 possible selections, but it wont be that hard because the combinations would always help somehow, however minimal. Once the user gets a selection right, they can choose which pair(s) they want to buy. 

Because my design was very flat, I wanted to show how my site would work as if it was developed and moving. I had never used After Effects before but with the help of a friend to get me going, I quickly got to terms with it. The above videos show the site on the first 'launch' day (video 1) and then when it refreshes on 0 0 0 0 (video 2). Hopefully it will help you understand the logistics of the site and how I originally imagined it.

So that's the full campaign! I thank you (if you have) for reading all this. Who knows, there may even be more to come!