The following text is an excerpt from an interview with Niek Pulles from SneakerFreaker Magazine Issue #48. Buy your own edition here .
Have you ever looked at a cool sneaker and realized it looks exactly like a specific sports car? Dutch artist Niek Pulles showcases this synchronicity with his brilliant SNEACARS project. Drawing compelling connections between abstract shoes like the Nike ISPA Road Warrior and the zombified Chrysler Charger tank from Mad Max: Fury Road is an entertaining side hustle to his day job as a senior designer at Nike. More SNEACARS, please!
I grew up in a large family with six boys. We geek out on anything on wheels, speed or sports. Our house was filled with sneakers and die-cast cars of all shapes and sizes. What I remember most is seeing faces and characters in car grills. From that moment I always wanted to be a car designer, or maybe some other kind of designer. You can walk into any type of design office in the world, and their mood boards will show that synergy - either as inspiration around art, materials or construction. It can also relate to speed, design lines or just straight sexiness.
Speed is also inscribed in the Nike logo. I'm a full-on Swoosh boy, I grew up with Nike. It's in my DNA. During the pandemic, I just felt like giving my thoughts a proper platform. SNEACAR vision is definitely a "thing" now. Many people react to the pictures I post and get it imprinted in their brains, so now I search and dig a little deeper than before to find the right matches. That's the fun part! It creates a really fun community that combines my two personal favorite objects in life. Form is definitely a priority. I believe that the history and concept of how and what kind of shoe is crucial. Creating a design philosophy, like what we did with the ISPA models and our TEAMx7 in general, is another consideration. Cooperation and collaboration around all of this is important, especially in these times of massive change. Rethinking designs and reinventing methods of making and reshaping the shape of speed is the future!
