adidas Bee Keepers: The Collaboration That Taught Me to Tell a Story

From the archive / 2021 / My first major brand collaboration

About three or four months after I quit my full-time job to go all in on ShoeBaker, adidas came calling. My first major collaboration. And they chose me for Atlanta.

I was still early in figuring out what life as a full-time artist looked like. Then this opportunity landed in front of me. Looking back, the Bee Keepers did more than open a door. This project changed the way I thought about making shoes.

One opportunity. Fourteen pairs.

As I remember it, adidas was putting the Forum in the hands of designers across major cities. I got to bring my perspective to it from Atlanta.

The original opportunity was to create a pair. I negotiated permission to release 13 pairs through the NTWRK app, too. All 13 sold. Add the sample, and 14 pairs were made in total.

That meant a lot, especially that soon after leaving my job. People were willing to buy into an idea I had brought to life with my hands.

The shoe needed a story

The concept drew from Wu-Tang’s Killer Bees imagery. Yellow, black, honeycomb, honey drips, and a sting at the heel. The custom box carried that same idea beyond the shoe.

My engineering mind had been focused on how to build something. How do I make this shape? How do I get this detail to work? Those questions still mattered. But this project pushed me to think about what people would feel and remember when they saw it.

Stories sell. Products don’t.

That became the lesson I carried out of this collaboration. A shoe could hold a whole story, and the way I presented it could invite people into that story.

Taking the idea to a bee farm

I pictured the shoes with real bees and us in beekeeper suits. So I reached out to Mr. Bradford of B&B Enterprise. He welcomed us to the farm and helped make it happen.

He also took the time to educate us about the bees. We came for photographs and left with a new respect for what we were standing around. The Bradford family’s hospitality made the whole experience even better.

And the pictures came out so smooth. The bees, the suits, the hives, the shoes, the box. Everything belonged in the same frame. We had taken an idea off the workbench and given it a place to live.

The project that shifted my direction

When I look at this work now, I see the beginning of a different approach. I was learning how to carry a concept through the shoe, the packaging, and the photographs. I was learning how to tell a story.

Thirteen pairs sold. One sample. One first major collaboration that still matters to me. I’m grateful adidas chose me, and I’m grateful to the Bradford family for helping the idea become something I could never have captured on my workbench alone.

Stay in motion.

Read my original 2021 thank-you to the Bradford family →

Explore more brand collaborations →

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