❋
adidas
superstar
Johannes Leonardo - 2014
Art Direction / Print / Campaign Design / Branding / Photography
To relaunch the iconic adidas Superstar shoe, we dared to question what it means to be a superstar in today's world.
it was 2014, the superstar shell toe was turning 50, and adidas came to us with a brief — to relaunch one of the most iconic sneakers in history and prove it still mattered.
❋ The Pitchto honor the 50th of this icon, The obvious answer was to lean into nostalgia. but we went for something more fresh & provocative.
Fifty years of cultural credibility. Worn by Run-DMC, by athletes, by artists — the Superstar had already earned its mythology. The temptation was to celebrate that legacy. Instead, we asked what it costs to actually earn that name.
❋ The PitchQ: what is a superstar?
True superstars, we argued, don't perform for the crowd. They create for themselves. Not the likes. Not the applause. Not the validation. The real ones — the ones who last — only have an audience of one.
real recognize real.
The pitch book below was an immersion. Qualitative data visualizations. Slam poetry. A fictional graduation essay written as Pharrell. Quotes from artists who had already lived without needing applause. We built a world around the idea so adidas could greenlight it.
(DIRECTED BY FERDINANDO VERDERI, DESIGNED BY ME)
❋ THE CAMPAIGN
We brought this conviction to life through the voices of artists, athletes, and creators who had already proven it.
Launching with a 90 second film featuring globally recognized superstars David Beckham, Pharrell Williams, Rita Ora and Damian Lillard, the provocation was uniquely activated and adopted by 50+ markets across the globe, including takeovers in Times Square and pop-up shops in NYC, to the subways of Seoul, to paintings in Berlin and mobile applications in the UK.
