The trend this year has been players, in all major 3 sports NBA, MLB, NFL, more than ever wearing customized sneakers in games. I guess the companies giving them PE’s of team color’s just isn’t enough for some guys. Do you have any in the works we should look out for on a court or field? And do you think this will continue or one of the brands will step in and put a stop to it somehow?
Yeah I have had quite a few people hit me up for various things. A few I’m about to work on is Yonder Alonso’s set of cleats. He plays first base for the Padres. I’m sure more will trickle in.
As a custom sneaker artist, what’s next for you, do you see yourself diversifying into other mediums? What’s your end game, how long do you want to be customizing shoes?
Well I came from canvas work. Who knows maybe I will start doing something similar to that for little bit. I will ride the custom wave as long as I can. Ultimately I would like to get scooped up by a company and join their design team. Nike, Adidas, Asics, you name it. That is my ultimate dream.
Over the next 6 months to a year what would you like to see happen or take in the custom sneaker scene overall? Or that you’d predict happening?
I would like to see and predict that some of us are going to get sucked out of our homes and basements and little work areas and get picked up as designers by some of these companies. Only seems right. It seems like if you cant beat em, join em, these companies cant touch what some of us are doing. Maybe they will take notice and throw a healthy number at us and get us full time employed with a bunch of resources at our liege to really stun the world with. I can only imagine executives looking at some of our work and going, “damnit guys, why did y’all think of that!?”
Finally…Any projects from the Dank Customs headquarters we should anticipate coming out soon? Any any last words?
Nothing too crazy. Expect some more envelope pushing from myself and Pedro of Absolelute (@absolelute). We have some nice projects coming up. Other than that, thanks to the fans that follow and comment and keep me going, thanks to the clientele that take the chance to allow me to show them what I can do. Keep the ideas flowing, with out them, I’m nothing.
Thanks to Jake for taking the time to answer our questions. You can find him on Instagram: @jwdanklefs and contact him for your own custom sneaker via his site: www.jwdanklefs.com
Check more of Danks work below and let us know in the comments what sneaker customizer you’d like to see featured on the next 2000words interview.
All images courtesy of JWDanklefs.com