WORLD FILE — AD-17 45.50° N MTL → 45.51° N PDX — SAME PARALLEL STATUS: STILL TRADING ON RESALE

Adidas
Skateboarding.

adidas Skateboarding came looking for the Keep Pushing universe. Three hand-drawn characters later, the trefoil was riding a board and every piece carried the MEKA. signature, because that was the deal.

adidas Skateboarding coach jacket worn from the back, hand-drawn trefoil-skater graphic with the MEKA. signature, sunlit stone setting
ClientAdidas Skateboarding
ScopeSS17 + SS19 collections
RoleArtist & illustrator
Years2015 → 2019
The world

They came
for the universe.

The SS17 brief asked for hand-drawn, raw, analog: the one graphic language a global sportswear brand can't fake in-house. Attached was a screenshot of Keep Pushing characters the Portland team already loved, with a note that said it all: "this is where you fit in."

The answer: three icons of skate culture rebuilt as Keep Pushing characters. Mark Gonzales, drawn from the famous photo of him skating Alcatraz in a jail uniform. The Blackbird logo turned into a living mascot. "Skate or die" flipped into a Ride in Peace reaper. Every lettering drawn by hand, DIY like the 90s scene it honors. And one clause: the MEKA. signature stays on every design.

"We'd like to show our support of Meka as an artist doing work for us."

adidas Skateboarding, Portland, 2015

Ride in Peace — the Skate or Die reaper redrawn as a Keep Pushing character, adidas board in hand
01 — Process

Where it
started.

References first, then pencils
Pencil sketch sheet — trefoil skater, Mark Gonzales portrait, Ride in Peace skull, adidas hand lettering and the prisoner-uniform character riding a board
Mark Gonzales skating Alcatraz in a prisoner uniform — photo by Bryce Kanights, the brief's reference
90s skate moodboard — Santa Cruz Cellblock, Bones, Mark Gonzales, Vision, Keep Pushing série 001, street skating: the DIY analog references behind the adidas capsule

What adidas Skateboarding wanted wasn't a pitch deck, it was the hand: raw, analog, the one graphic language a sportswear giant can't build in-house. So the work started on paper, a moodboard of the 90s DIY graphics that raised me (Santa Cruz, Bones, Vision, Gonz) taped up next to the first pencils, every skate icon rebuilt as a Keep Pushing character long before anything went digital.

02 — The work

Out in
the world.

Final result — real life
Skater riding a concrete bowl in the white Mark Gonzales adidas Skateboarding tee — Legalize Skateboarding hand-lettered graphic across the back GONZ — LEGALIZE SKATEBOARDING
Person in an elevator wearing the black adidas Skateboarding tee — Ride in Peace grim reaper riding a board over an R.I.P. tombstone, MEKA. signature RIDE IN PEACE REAPER
Smiling man in a car wearing the white adidas trefoil tee — the trefoil rebuilt as a Keep Pushing skate character, MEKA. signature TREFOIL SKATER — MEKA.
Complete adidas Skateboarding capsule flat lay on white — nine pieces at equal scale: trefoil-skater tees, green ringer, Mark Gonzales tee, Ride in Peace reaper tee, CMYK sasquatch tee, navy long sleeve and navy coach jacket SS17 CAPSULE — FULL LINEUP
AD-17 / SS17 CAPSULEadidas Skateboarding
03 — The pieces

Every piece,
one hand.

Artwork and product, garment by garment
White tee — red trefoil skater, hand-drawn skateboarding lettering
Black tee — Ride in Peace reaper, adidas trefoil in the skeleton hand
Black tee back — adidas skateboarding drawn by hand, trefoil skater below
Black tee — three trefoil characters on boards, full colour
Navy piece — trefoil skater and hand-drawn adidas skateboarding lettering, signed MEKA.
Worn — allover trefoil-character tee, shot from behind
Worn — the collection on the street, Japanese lookbook
Worn — white adidas skateboarding tee, shot from behind
Why it matters

The collection shipped, then kept living: adidas re-ran the mascot on new product, Japanese lookbooks picked it up on the street, and years later the tees still trade online listed as "100% authentic adidas Originals MEKA tee". The artist's name became part of the product.

2Collections — they came back for more
MEKA.Signature negotiated on every design
5Y+Still trading on resale platforms