TWO weeks ago, Nike released an ad that was instantly hailed as a masterpiece.
Cleverly stitching two disparate pieces of footage from two different sports into a seamless split-screen effect, it’s a mind-boggling concept with a home-run execution. But it’s more than just a gimmick. At a time when sports are only slowly coming back amid the tensions that are running through the world, it’s also a surprisingly emotional short film.
“[It] gave me serious goosebumps,” said designer Jayson Atienza, recalling when he saw the ad for the first time. “It's amazing and so powerful, and exactly what the world needed to hear and see from Nike.”
The film was created by longtime Nike ad agency Wieden + Kennedy, an independent firm that’s been creating ads for Nike for the past 40 years. And while he didn’t directly have a hand in the campaign, Batangas-born Atienza once worked inside the Wieden + Kennedy network, serving as a creative director in the agency’s Shanghai arm.
For Atienza, working with Nike was a childhood dream come true.
“I've always been a huge basketball fan and I love sneakers,” he said in an interview with SPIN Life. While he was born in the Philippines, he moved to New Jersey at a young age. It was there that he began to absorb the urban and street culture that would come to define his work.
He said: “I grew up with a lot of related influences coming at me through sneaker culture, street ball, hip hop, streetwear and urban life in general. I don't think you can strip away these influences from me if you tried. They’re all in my DNA.”
Also in his DNA? His first art teacher — his father, who was both deaf and mute.
“I had my own slang sign language to communicate with him,” recalled Atienza. They would spend days drawing together. “It bonded us, and made me notice I could create things. It really helped shape my life’s path.”
When he grew up and got into university, he double majored in graphic design and advertising.
“The ideas that these two majors applied art and creativity to something attracted me,” he said. “Advertising allows you to showcase that thinking in so many different forms: TV, print, digital, outdoor, guerrilla. So many formats to express ideas.”
The ideas in his head were informed by his obsessions. The Knicks, for one. It was a good time to be a Knicks fan in those days, with big man Patrick Ewing leading the charge to make them a solid east coast rival of Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls. (Of the team now, Atienza can only say: “I wish they could finally get the right team together.”)
And then there was everything else, swirling around him like a tornado. “From hip hop, to graffiti, sneaker culture, all of it was coming at me,” said Atienza. “All of those influences were just finding their way into my world.” He stood at the center of it, slowly finding his artistic footing.
No walk in the park
But to get to the top, he had to kick up a storm of his own. When he graduated in 1999, he got a job in the prestigious ad agency BBDO New York, and someone there asked him where he was from. When Atienza answered, “Philippines,” all he got was a blank look.
“They had no clue where that was. I was embarrassed for them.”
From then, “I had to create disruptive work to get recognized not only as a young creative but as a minority in the advertising world.”
Almost two decades later — and after working on art and campaigns for FedEx, HBO, and even a music video to commemorate the legacy of John Lennon — Nike came knocking.
“When it came time to collaborate artistically with Nike, they recognized these influences in my art and wanted to highlight all of that energy into my mural work for their flagship locations in the biggest Chinese markets like Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu,” Atienza explained.
Atienza was thrilled by the opportunity.
His first big painting gig with the Swoosh was a mural on the windows of the Kicks Lounge at the Tai Koo Hui commercial complex in Shanghai. Atienza spent two weeks painstakingly hand-painting the work in what’s become his artistic signature: giant mazes of colorful, abstract shapes that resemble debris, or perhaps fallen flower petals. (You can see the same style in the Vince Carter tribute the NBA commissioned from him this year.)
“I love using bright colors when I paint,” he said, “and then tailoring the work with bold line detail. There's a lot of energy I get from my work.”
From the negative space in the middle of his drawings rise images of the Air Jordan 1, Air Max 1, Air Force 1 and Air Max Uptempo.
Not a bad first raket for someone who grew up as a fan of AJ1s and Air Max 1s.
More murals followed — at the Jordan flagship in Beijing, then at the Tai Koo Li Nike Kicks Lounge in Chengdu.
By the time he was painting the murals, he had been living in China, and for a time had served as a creative director for Wieden + Kennedy Shanghai. As Nike's global agency of record in a country where the shoe giant was making big moves, Atienza got the chance to get up close and personal in brand work with the Swoosh.
Beyond the Great Wall
“I realized I was hired to help push personal sporting culture into an expanding Chinese market,” Atienza said. “Nike had been around for a while in China, but in the mid-2010s, the sporting culture was really beginning to blossom.”
Atienza remembers that as a heady time when the global fitness boom was slowly overtaking China.
“Believe it or not, muscle tone was just beginning to be admired in China,” he said. “Nike and W+K's campaigns played a huge role in helping create this messaging.”
As many Western companies have realized, the key to global expansions is to crack the gargantuan Chinese consumer market. Nike has arguably succeeded at this better than most, thanks to the deft touch of marketers in tune with a secret, global language of cool that tailored the Nike message specifically for the Chinese crowd.
It was here that Atienza made his home. Together with his wife, they made China their headquarters and traveled all over Asia. As he did when he was a kid, Atienza absorbed the culture of the places they visited, trying to find his inspiration in the new experiences before flying back to Shanghai.
For an adman like himself, there was no place quite like it. “Six years later you see just how much the Chinese audience's tastes have been shaped. Changing tastes and modern preferences emerge in China with unprecedented speed and force, and that trajectory will continue on,” he said.
While the campaigns at Wieden + Kennedy kept him busy in a variety of mediums (including a major print, video, and billboard project for Nike Running in China), for Atienza, there’s still nothing like the feeling of picking up a brush.
“The creative concepting, the planning, the execution and energy put into my art for these commissions are very personal and separate from the creative direction I did for Nike with W+K,” explained Atienza. “My art is my own creative expression created for the brand.”
Looking towards home
He works as a freelance artist now, but even now, Atienza still finds his peace in painting.
He’s still doing massive storefront murals — his latest one was a 20-by-40 foot giant he painted in Uppercut Edit, a post-production house in the Hawks hometown of Atlanta — but he’s also busy customizing sneakers. “I guess you could say there's a special connection to painting a fresh white pair of Nike Dunks or AJ1s for a client,” he said.
During the quarantine, many people have reached out to him for customized sneaker jobs. One of his favorite recent works was a pair he painted in shades of red, commissioned by a friend for his son's 16th birthday. Another was for a New York-based stylist who wanted something wild and multi-colored.
“When I finish the final line detail of my style, and everything is perfect, all the lines and colors in place, it's really satisfying to know someone will enjoy stepping out in something I made for them,” Atienza said of his shoe work.
He’s also keeping an eye out on the immense creative ferment that’s bubbling in his homeland.
“It was an eye-opening experience to be one of the judges for the Adobo Design Awards in 2019,” Atienza recalled. “Being introduced to a large body of Filipino creative work at once, I was blown away by the amount of creative talent in the Philippines right now.”
Remembering that day in BBDO NY when mentioning the Philippines only got blank stares, Atienza hopes things will change in the creative industry. “Back then, there was barely anyone to look up to with my cultural background. And that needed to change. Representation is so important and I hope to inspire Filipino creatives to be more confident in getting their work out into the global stage.”
And whether it’s in Nike or beyond, “ I just wish there was more recognition of this talent on a global scale.”
To see Jayson’s work and learn more, visit him online at www.jaysonatienza.com/art or Instagram: @jaysonatienza
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