K-Swiss - ‘You gotta know your classics’ Campaign

Forty-four years after its launch, K- Swiss is finally telling The Classic’s story.

The timing of The Classic storytelling campaign comes on the eve of K-Swiss’s launch of a whole new era of Classics. Before introducing a whole new generation of Classics, K-Swiss thought it was time to set the record straight about its quietly iconic shoe. And it’s only fitting that the company a few secrets in the process. Like what the ‘K’ in its name actually stands for, or why its original owners only produced a single shoe twenty years long. The campaign tackles these answers and more in a story that stretches across 8 short chapters under the campaign motto: ‘You gotta know your classics.’

The ‘You gotta know your classics’ campaign is, as far as global campaigns go, a low-key affair. K-Swiss purposely avoided creating a tedious tome or overly designed catalogue, and instead worked with Amsterdam storytelling agency Lemon scented tea and a handful of highly credible international designers to narrate and visualize the story on the front and back of 8 limited- edition posters. The chapter names, like ‘Blond on Blond’ and ‘We killed canvas. Sorry’ provide historic and cultural context to The Classic, while the designers were given free reign to inter- pret the stories graphically. Each poster is a stand-alone illustration, underscoring the lack of hierarchy in The Classics’ own story. Only 400 copies of each poster have been printed.

By giving these 8 designers the space to interpret, K-Swiss simply wanted to give sneaker fans and designers something they’d want themselves. Throughout March K-Swiss will be giving away a limited number of posters each day at kspace.tv.

Agency: Lemon Scented Tea, Amsterdam
Poster designers:
•Mario Lombardo / Berlin •Value & Service / London •Cobbenhagen & Hendriksen / Amsterdam •Mark Owens / Los Angeles •Non-Format / US •Grand People / Bergen (Norway) •Fabian Jenny / Zurich (Switzerland) • Sung Min Choi & Sulki Choi/ Seoul (South Korea)
Launch: February 15, 2010
Media: Posters/online Roll-out: UK, Germany, the Netherlands, US
Print run: 400 of each poster