“Heart of the City” Charity Tee

August 2020: I designed a shirt inspired by Kobe Bryant ; celebrating his life and accomplishments. The personal project was met with high demand and resulted in me mass producing the shirt and donating all the proceeds to the After School All Stars foundation.

I created a t-shirt graphic with the goal of telling a personal story that would honor Kobe Bryant. The design revolves around 2 personal moments. The first being a photo I took of Kobe when i was 9 years old at the Lakers’ 2000 Championship parade. The second is the Celebration of Life for Kobe and his daughter Gianna. I was able to attend the event and show love for Kobe and Gianna one last time.

The design utilized a photo I had taken of Kobe at the Laker Parade. Above the photo, I placed 20 purple and gold butterflies representing a timeline of Kobe's 20 year career with gold butterflies signifying his championship seasons. These butterflies were found all along Staples Center for Kobe and Gianna’s Celebration of Life. I took one of my first and last moments of being in Kobe’s presence and put them together as a design that represented the bookends of my fandom of Kobe.

What started out as a personal project quickly drew a lot of interest and I was able to mass produce and sell the shirts with all of the proceeds being donated to the After School All Stars Foundation. A charity which both Kobe and the Lakers supported.

Thank you to everyone who helped make this happen and to everyone who helped me raise over $2000 for the After School All Stars

Client: Personal Project

A collection of children’s footwear designed for Fall and Holiday 2019. Dark based shoes to ensure they stay clean for a longer time while pops of color are inserted to bring liveliness to the models. I was tasked with implementing new color blocking and color combinations to bring new life to long time DC models and to expand the variety of looks for new models like the E.Tribeka.

Jordan Clarkson “Flame Thrower”

A t-shirt created as an exercise in designing a “bootleg/ vintage” style graphic. The design is inspired by Jordan Clarkson’s Filipino heritage and takes cues from Filipino culture. These inspirations include hand painted movie posters, the bright and flashy designs of Jeepneys and the Philippines rainforest. These elements as well as design cues taken from Jordan Clarkson’s personal history were put together in a cohesive composition.

Noah Force One

February 2020: For my Nephew Noah’s 1st birthday, I created a special custom sneaker for him to celebrate the occasion. Playing off of the “One” theme, I chose to I recreated his father’s favorite shoe, the “Taiwan” Nike Air Force One in a toddler size so the two of them can match.

Using an all white Nike Air Force 1 as the canvas, I carefully painted the gradient pattern along the swooshes to match that of the inspiration shoe. Lastly, I coated the shoes with a high gloss finishing agent to mimic the patent leather upper of original “Taiwans.”

Custom box design and size labels were also created to complete the look of the gift. The size label read “Nike Air Force One (NOAH)” complete with a custom SKU code made up of the numbers of his birthday. Another small touch, “Made in USA” was placed in 3 languages (English, Tagalog and Spanish) to represent the 3 languages spoken by the cultures that make up his ethnicity.

June 2019: I was tasked with creating the company's first ever PRIDE month bracelet. As someone outside of the LGBTQ community, I didn't want to create some storytelling aspect to the product because I felt that it would be disingenuous and it wasn't my story to tell. So I tried to keep the design simple, tasteful and to the point without being cliche and making it an all over rainbow print.

A design exercise utilizing color and material to tell a story based on pro-skater Stevie Williams’ first DC Shoe. The colorway and material choice are based on Stevie’s hometown team, the Philadelphia Eagles. Certain details commemorate their recent Super Bowl victory, while others are nods to his previous skate decks. 3M reflective accents are placed along the forefoot, revealing a feather pattern. This represents Stevie, like the Eagles, showing up when the bright lights are shining on him.

July 2017: My three submissions for Pensole Academy's Fueling the Future of Footwear competition in collaboration with Foot Locker and Asics Tiger. 

Mood Board: Inspiration was taken from Japanese culture and Asics' historic ties to Japan. 

Footwear Design: Using the imagery from the mood board, I designed a shoe that utilizes the protective function of samurai armor. It was incorporated into waterproof materials and a hidden lace system found on the medial side of the shoe. 

Release Strategy: Using the shoe's main samurai design aesthetic, I developed a release strategy to go along with this theme. The release revolved around limited colorways in collaboration with Asics collaborators BAIT and KITH along side the television show Samurai Jack. The special colors would also be released exclusively through a scavenger hunt at the San Diego Comic-Con then followed by a wider release of general release colors afterwards.

April 2020: Los Angeles based boutique, Undefeated, created an open challenge for the public to create their own color-ups of their iconic collaborations with Nike.

Using the Undefeated Kobe 1 and Kobe 4 as a silhouette, I created a pack of shoes celebrating both Kobe Bryant’s daughter Gianna, and his induction into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

Undefeated Nike Kobe 1 - “Orchid”

I utilized Kobe and Gianna’s jersey numbers (2, 8, and 24) as the Pantone Color call outs to create a pink and gold color scheme similar to the purple and gold of the Lakers. The color pallet resembled that of an orchid, which is also one of the most coveted flowers. It is said that the orchid represents love, luxury, beauty and strength. All of these traits made it a perfect theme for the shoe representing Gianna.

Undefeated Nike Kobe 4 - “Hall of Fame”

Taking inspiration from Kobe’s grey draft day suit and combining it with the orange and silver colors from the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame induction jacket, I created a design that honors the start and end of Kobe’s basketball career.

Client: Personal Project

“Kalis Collection”

A collection of footwear inspired by Jalen Green’s Filipino Heritage as well as his sharp sense of style. The collection is themed around the Filipino sword called the Kalis; a sword used in combat to slash and attack and keep opponents at a distance. The feature that stands out the most is its wavy blade. Off the court, Jalen’s style can be described as “wavy.” But on the court, his style of play involves attacking the rim and slashing to the basket.