Custom Kicks

(this cover image courtesy of Laurence King Publishers)
by MAKI
Published by Laurence King Publishers
The team at MAKI Design Studio in Groningen, The Netherlands, sent out an invite to artists illustrators to show or create customized shoes. The result, some of the sickest custom shoes you'll ever see bound between 223 pages.
(Jeremyville)I imagine artists in the 70's wandering around with their paint pens and Sharpies like zombies, looking for their next canvas to kill. Drooling and forlorn with despair, one zombie drops his cap-less sharpie, haplessly marking his dirty white Chuck Taylors. Grunting, the zombie artist sits down to stare at the lightning shaped scribble. He picks up the marker and gripping it like a 5 year old eating Frankenberries, and slowly (because he's a zombie) the shoe becomes an awesome creation of clouds and monsters and lightning bolts.

Ok, obviously this isn't how it happened, and I know this because MAKI offers up a lowdown on the full circle of customized shoes with a brief history, it's grip on the fashion industry/ shoe companies and the culture that supports it.
(Wesley van Eeden)
140 artist (though the Laurence King site says 150)
320 colour illustrations
websites and countries listed for each artist
223 pages filled with inspiration and a heavy dose of envy.
(Kate Sutton) (Kristel Steenbergen)Custom Kicks is another must have coffee-table/reference book. It took me forever to read through it because I kept stopping to look up the artists. Though I loved Stickerbomb, this book kills it on artist details.
(Mark Ward)
(Remi/Rough)
(Arjen de Jong) (Justin Fines/DEMO)
(Pankra Studio)
(Nick Deakin)
(Jeremyville)Locally, you can purchase Custom Kicks through Dandelion Emporium or globally through Laurence King Publishers.