Today we’d like to introduce you to Jake Smith

Jake, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?

I got introduced into footwear from a few factors, all of which are still continued activities and inspirations for me to this day. The first is my mother and coaches from early middle school through highschool with cross country and track. Since I work within athletic footwear/focus of running footwear, naturally I owe a large part of my journey to the ones who motivated for me to run in the first place. My mother asked if I wanted to start running with her close to 14 years ago and only a few years following that, I met my two coaches when I joined the team. These two men were then the ones who reinforced my appreciation for the sport and showed me what it can really do for someone’s mind, body, and soul. I could talk about them this whole interview but this eventually combined with my appreciation of the arts. At the time I primarily illustrated with a young focus on storytelling and even animation. I loved creating compelling characters based on people around me and eventually this translated to me drawing of course professional runners (go figure). This eventually picked up in my freshman year of college, still majoring in animation and as a byproduct of these illustrations, eventually athletes and brands begun to take notice. While I always was obsessed with footwear and storytelling that could be found within them, I did not see myself as a “fashion designer”. I didn’t see the same traits as others around me that I knew but part of working with these runners, and being a runner myself, they would talk about their footwear when I would do a project with them and I resonated a large amount with them. Enough to make the decision I wanted to combine my passions completely and pursue footwear. Really bite the bullet in a way and take a risk and put myself in a environment I wasn’t used to with fashion.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?

There’s of course struggles in anything you truthfully care about doing. When you care about something, I feel as through the world attempts to test you with it to strengthen your passion for it. See how much you care in a way. My biggest tests somewhat said before were learning how to adapt with a fashion crowd and design language. I loved the people I was around but the difference I felt in the beginning was, when I was designing, I was trying to do both heavy, very specific target solving for usually running or some form of movement and that sometimes wasn’t always picked up. It looked in the end of a day like a boring shoe which they were right! I had to learn to storytell and depict what I was trying to solve not just in the function but the design language that was shown in what I was drawing or making. If you imagine that to be in the real world market of footwear, say a bunch of shoes on a shelf and you designed a shoe that was the fasted, lightest, most interesting feeling, etc shoe of all time but it looked clunky, boring or not interesting, people pass it up.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?

currently, I am working as a freelance designer across multiple companies and even with some different job types. Primarily of course I am working in designing of footwear. Previously I was with a brand called TYR who is originally a swimwear brand. They were just in Paris this year for the Olympics as the main sponsor for the US in swimming which was extremely fun to see. Was working on a collection of shoes in a somewhat new category and I’m excited to see where those may go. Besides that however, I am currently in partnership with Nike Running alongside with my a creative alias “Jake The Runner”. I’ve been mainly designing apparel for the upcoming state championships and regional qualifying race known as NXR where I will be speaking to young athletes from my home state about things they can do in sport of running besides just “running fast”. I’m extremely excited to see where these go and it’s been a lot of fun working with a brand and people I’ve grown a big relationship with over the years.

How do you think about happiness?

Lots of things make me happy but if there were to be a handful of things that make me the happiest, I’d say they would have to be, my family, trail running, which has been a growing interest of mine, doing not just interesting projects for work but also taking time to create for myself as well as time to not create! Rest is huge and it can look many different ways. Throughout the senior year of my college career, I saved up from working at a coffee shop and project commissions and chose to do a solo travel trip to Norway. This was my first time ever traveling off of the continental US and I wanted to do something that was completely alone and maybe even a little bit of a test for myself. I camped out in a suv and just drove, ran and hiked from Oslo on the east to Bergen on the west and back for just around a week. It was a time of metal rest and by the time I came back, I was ready to really dig in on my next steps for myself.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Jake_the_runner_art