What’s it like to paint a few hundred pairs of shoes?
Warner Brothers (and Apple TV+) reached out and asked us to do exactly that. They wanted custom Nikes for the cast and production crew of their hit show Shrinking.
When they first reached out I thought they wanted kicks just for their directors and cast members– people like Bill Lawrence, Harrison Ford. Jason Segel…
But when they clarified that by production crew–that meant everyone from camera operators, sound engineers, writers, production assistants, cinematographers, photographers, drivers, catering—I was blown away by how special this project was going to be.
With the team I have usually painting hundreds of pairs isn’t a challenge. But when you only have two weeks to do it— well, things got kinda crazy! The clock was ticking. We not only had to get our designs approved immediately, because TIME. WAS. RUNNING. OUT.
We had to source a ton of nikes as well. ( Let’s just say… the team did many trips to the local malls during this project 🤣 )
After several rounds of back and forth, the project got greenlit and we were on crunch mode.
We drew inspiration straight from the Shrinking poster—Harrison Ford and Jason Segel sitting on a bench beneath the logo. We took that color scheme and text and painted it right onto the Nike Swoosh.Then came the last-minute curve ball a few days before this project was due—these weren’t just customs, they were wrap gifts for finishing the production of Season 3 so the client wanted to add something to the design to reference that.
With their approval, we added a subtle nod on the heels: “S3.” for season 3.
At midnight, the last pair was finished. By 5am, I was back at the Shoedio, loading the Warner Brothers truck bound for their studio in Burbank– just in time for their wrap up party.
Go checkout Season 3 of Shrinking!
