Ever hanker for shoe design immortality, aside from scribbling “NIN Rulz” on your Chuck Taylors? RYZ (prounounced “rise”), a Portland-based shoe company, has brought shoe design to the masses with the first community-based sneaker design shop.

The process works like this: Designers download the basic shoe template, work their magic, then upload their designs back to the site. The community votes on the best ideas, and RYZ manufactures those kicks with the highest scores. The designers make a little cash and royalties, and RYZ doesn’t have to sign a basketball player to a multimillion dollar endorsement deal.

And if you aren’t a designer and just want to buy the Warhawk (the Bettie Page/Shark design pictured here), you can fork over the $90 and consider yourself a patron of the arts.

Source: Asylum

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3. Classic Kicks x Vans Midschool 77

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 at 9:54 am and is filed under Looking Fresh, Random Shit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.