When I found the Make It Yours contest, I had been mulling over the regrets of NOT entering the JBF Customs Air Force 1 sneaker design challenge. After stumbling upon the Likelihood contest I knew that I wanted to participate and to get an entry into contest was going to be tight with a roughly 36 hour window. Certainly not impossible but after missing the last contest I really wanted to come with some heat to try and win this thing.

After deciding to hold myself accountable for an entry in this contest, I sat down to to get the basics out of the way. What is being asked of entrants, what's the criteria, are there any questions I need clarified before proceeding, and most importantly how to submit a qualified entry. In this case the Likelihood did an excellent job in their post of laying out the rules. 1) 1 (one) entry per person 2)  Post artwork to your story, tag @lklihood, include the hashtag #ICallShotgun. 3) Entries must be submitted by the deadline. With everything pretty straightforward and no "gotchya's" my mind started cycling through all kinds of ideas and concepts.

The JBF Custom contest that I was beating myself up over provided some interesting insight into voting and I tried to draw on what I saw in that contest voting from the jump. That being said, I knew that I wanted to produce something that the people could get behind. Something that would speak to Likelihood's audience, something that, if you were on the fence with your vote, might quickly relate to you and swing it my way. Most importantly I had to produce something that meant something to me. My social circle is fairly small so I knew I couldn't rely on my social network for votes alone, although I did get an amazing response from my followers. 

After kicking around some ideas, a Seattle sports team concept started to emerge but nothing really stuck until it clicked. The only way to pull off this concept was to introduce it into the "What The" family, which has arguably been played out. However, I saw a fitting opportunity to bring a thread to the What The series and produce something that for all intents and purposes was as random as every What The series before it, but also had a great theme holding it together.

A What The concept would not be complete without two completely different shoes. This was an exciting challenge as I have my favorites, influences and hero's attached to this concept. Both in the sneaker world and the sports world. I started by throwin my dubs up on the swoosh and mid-panel of the upper. From there the natural progression was to bring in the Apple Cup mix, quite possibly the closest you'll ever see these colorways without complaints. From there I dipped down to the mud-guard. The Freshwater Griffey's are some of my favorites and as it played out there was an Atmos feel with the white toe box which I decided to leave in the end. It felt right, it didn't seem forced, and I didn't want to wild it out for the sake of wildin' out so it stayed. On the other shoe I wanted to pay homage to my favorite Seattle sports team, the Supersonics. I've always loved the Green and Yellow of the old logo and Tinker Hatfields' iconic elephant print has no doubt made it's mark on the sneaker culture. The elephant print tends to remain untouched except for a few red and black flips, an endangered species if you will. I was pleased with the green and yellow elephant print and it became the foundation of the second shoe with the treatment applied to the mud-guard.

Early stages of "MAKE IT YOURS." compilation. Researching photos and finding the right fit for the letter takes time. Trying to find the right combo can be really time consuming and if you let it get out of hand, it will. I was able to mess with a few combos and get dialed in relatively quickly. Due to the deadline I knew I wanted to move with intent and purpose one thes and not overthink my selections. As mentioned above, I wanted this to mean something to me and keep true to my experiences so I had to throw in some of my all-time favorites. Griffey, Cortez Kennedy (R.I.P.), Beast Mode, and the Kemp-Payton connection are my personal quintessential Seattle Sports icons. I'm a sucker for the GP #2 jersey and was bummed that it didn't make the cut (Gary, hook me up if you see this) but I think I was able to capture the essence of Sonics basketball during this era... Payton-Kemp, Kemp-Payton. 

With the NHL returning to Seattle I wanted to make sure that I didn't leave out our oldest championship organization, the Seattle Metropolitans. If you don't know the history I'll keep it short, they were the first U.S. team to win the Stanley Cup, here's a link to the wiki page. I ended up hitting the Likelihood tongue labels with the Metropolitans and the XFL Dragons colorway as a contrasting old/new theme running throughout this shoe.

I really felt like the shoe took ME on the journey. After I dumped that first gold swatch in the swoosh it was on. For whatever reason I didn't really have to think much, the pieces just kind of fell into place. The toughest part was trying to make sense out of a What The concept and that's counter-intuitive because it's a What The, but you still want to thread the needle to be able to talk about the shoe. At this point I was pumped on where it was going but knew details still needed to be massaged and I didnt' want to push it into a place where I felt I needed to tear-down and start over. That was major key. I think at this point, I was generally happy, didn't LOVE it but knew it was time to step back and work some details in here and there to let the concept open itself up to where it wanted to go.

Final artwork posted to IG for my entry 1/5

At this point I felt like I had given it a fair shake and got a little anxious to be done, to finish it off I made a label of my What The sneakers would jokingly be. I started down the path of naming the wolf grays, and the rave greens but Nike can be pretty unconventional with their naming so I reverted to the team colors you will find in the colorway. I threw in a few easter eggs on the numbers that nobody will get but I think it's fun and it makes perfect sense to me so there's that.

My favorite features of the colorway are the Griffey Freshwater 1 nod on the mud-guard and toe box. Then the retro Supersonic elephant print mud-guard to the '96 Sonics colorway on the air unit, midsole and outsole.

Iconic colorways born from iconic moments

Before the Legion of Boom, GP changed the attitude of Seattle as a soft sports city.

Flipping the MAKE IT YOURS. was some of the most fun I've had in a while. From choosing the right cast of characters to reflect my affinity for Seattle as a sports town, to choosing the right photos to pop into the right letters and maintain some type of "action" in each letter was important. I played around with this more than I did the shoe but I'm really happy with how it turned out. Some will argue that things were under or overrepresented but to me, this embodies what it was like growing up around these icons. From Beast Mode to Tez, The Dawg Father to The Kid, Ryan Leaf's improbable rise, fall and comeback, The Sounders and Storms' championship clubs and of course the Reign Man and The Glove it all holds a really special place in my heart.