Hasta La Ideas

Name: James Carnes

Occupation: I am the Global Creative Director for Sport Performance Design at Adidas.

Location: I currently live right outside Herzogenaurach, Germany. But I also still live in Portland, Oregon. I just officially moved over to Germany with my family, but I still go back and forth.

Current projects: We just finished everything to do with the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Now we’re ramping up for the 2016 Olympics in Rio. So there are a lot of new high-performance projects on our table, in terms of footwear and apparel and working with new country federations, which is always really cool.

There’s tons of other stuff. We’ve got a new line coming for Stella McCartney. We introduced a technology called Boost this year, and that’s growing. We’re also doing a lot of new collaboration projects, where we’re bringing in designers from different industries—whether it’s architects, industrial designers, graphic designers—and working with them, just getting a different point of view on what sport means to them and how they see sports products.

Mission: I would say, right now, the thing that I live by is making the future accessible through meaningful design. I think people need to be able to relate to totally new ideas, and design is really the interface that does that. It takes something that’s completely unfamiliar and makes it familiar, and it brings something that’s totally rare and makes it feel close to you. My mantra right now is: The world needs intuitive design.

For its Energy Boost line, Adidas replaced the EVA foam found in most running shoe midsoles with a Boost foam made from thermoplastic polyurethane granules fused into a cushioning layer.

When did you decide that you wanted to be a designer? It was basically right before college. I had three main tracks that I was considering: Science and medicine—which, in a very stereotypical way, was what my parents would have loved—archaeology or the visual arts. I didn’t really know that I wanted to be a designer; I just knew that I wanted to go in that direction. And at the last minute, as I was applying to different universities, I pulled together a portfolio and included it in my applications. So that’s when I decided—as I was applying.

Education: I went to the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, and got a B.F.A. with a focus on industrial design.

First design job: That’s a funny one. I didn’t grow up with a ton of money, and I used to make toys from stuff I basically pulled from the trash. So I would put together toy guns for me and my friends, or put together other contraptions. It was pretty well known in my neighborhood. And at some point this one friend’s dad came to the house. I thought I was in trouble. But he came to ask if I would make toys for his two sons’ birthdays, which were a couple of days apart. So I ended up making these futuristic bazookas for the kids down the street, and that’s when I realized, “Oh my god, this could actually be a job.”

Who is your design hero? I like the extremes—so I like inventors and I like stylists equally. I’m really a fan of Zaha Hadid and the Bouroullec brothers. But I’m also pretty crazy about Tom Ford, and I think Miuccia Prada is amazing. And as far as up-and-coming guys that are peer heroes—I’m a big fan of Alexander Taylor, and I also really like Jay and Ed from BarberOsgerby.

The Adidas headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany

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