After more than 4 years of research, testing and design, we introduce the Swift Skin suit for athletes competing at the Salt Lake Games as the answer to the question: “How can we help speedskaters go faster?” After testing materials for wind resistance, elasticity, warmth and breathability, we placed selected fabrics on certain body locations to work with the skater’s motion, maximizing performance against air friction and other physiological and environmental factors. The Swift Skin suit’s seams correspond with air-flow direction or are placed out of the way to reduce drag. Low-friction panels under each arm and on the right inner thigh reduce body friction and further improve overall movement and human efficiency. Simply stated, the Swift Skin suit was designed to help athletes discover how fast they could truly go—and the results were golden. And silver… And bronze… The kings reign again. Brazil wins the Cup for a record 5th time, and Ronaldo scores 2 in the final—bringing his 2002 tournament total to 8, the most by one player in a generation—in a pair of shiny chrome Mercurial Vapor boots that he’d only seen days before. It is a triumph for a country—and a company, the result of cultivating a presence in the world’s greatest footballing nation that culminated when Phil Knight looked down on the pitch and noticed that all those Brazilians were “wearing Nike.” The Mercurial Vapor itself: a minimalist statement of craft and innovation. The kings of football: pure magic. Global companies get caught up in global events. When 1999’s Kosovo refugee crisis became the world’s dominant news story, it reached us. A handful of Nike employees knew that we had thousands of B-grade shoes— the last thing they wanted to see was an opportunity go to waste. So began a saga that would include Logistics, Sales, Finance, Distribution—and in the end, 40,000 pairs of Nike shoes and 1,000 jackets were off to a place where footwear and apparel had life-and-death meanings that few of us can truly understand. The DRI-FIT Stand-off Distance Singlet looked strange, but it was designed to cool runners in Sydney— and it worked. Even better: it was 75% recycled. 1.5 plastic bottles per singlet; formed with water jets, ultrasonic welding, and a lot of ingenuity; by leaving it in its natural white, we even eliminated the dyeing process. Still, it was one of the greenest things we’d ever done. As for performance, it was a whole new way of running the recycling down to the curb. On April 20, 2001, Dr. Donald Schneekloth, of Neenah, Wisconsin, wrote Nike a letter. He had an 11-year-old patient with a condition called Bannayan’s Syndrome that caused her to have “excessively large feet while the rest of the body is essentially normal.” She wore a men’s 14 and her foot was too wide to fit on a Brannock Device. “Shoes that have your label… would boost her morale and allow her to have one less problem in dealing with this untreatable disease,” the doctor wrote. The letter and plaster casts of the patient’s feet found designer Mike Aveni and senior researcher Jeff Pisciotta, who threw themselves at the job. Mike sent questionnaires asking for as much information as he could get. And he got to work. In February 2002, a box arrived at Dr. Schneekloth’s of€ce. In addition to the shoes Mike had designed, it contained an invoice: “We’ve calculated the time, resources and expenses incurred and have determined a final price…,” which Mike fixed at “one huge smile.” To us, it’s a story of another happy athlete, and another reminder that our work matters. In 1999, a zoo in Kansas needed to attach a tracking beacon to some iguanas they were breeding to release into the wild. The catch was that the apparatus couldn’t restrict movement or alter behavior. So they called Nike. After some research and design, the iguana vest was born. When Nike’s ACG designers were called to design a vest that would accommodate a monitor, they had no idea the description would apply to both the device and the wearer. True, there’s no real market for lizard vests; but it never hurts for a designer to get a change of perspective. They were saying that the pressure would overwhelm a man fresh off of finals at Stanford, that the glare would be too much for a kid who had played with Bob Hope when he was 2, that the Amateurs and the NCAAs were different… Really—they were saying these things. But this one we just knew. And now? There’s now a “Tiger Slam.” A Tiger Slam. We think he’s handling the pressure just fine. In 1996, Brandi Chastain, a lifetime forward, rejoined the national team after a 3-year lay-off. Because of injuries, she wasn’t the player she used to be: she wasn’t a forward anymore. So she became a defender, and played every minute as the team won Gold in Atlanta. As ‘99 approached, Brandi was a major part of the equation, and when it came down to a single moment in Pasadena, there was Brandi, alone in front of the goal, one penalty kick away from the championship of the world. Ten years ago, Nike had no Equipment Division. In ‘95, it was composed of 2 people. Now, it’s a $781 million business. Ray Riley, who was there, recalls the early days: “You’re taking big chances because you don’t know not to. That’s how cool stuff happens…it’s the good part of design, when you’re solving problems. Whether you do great design or not, that’s up to you—you’ve still gotta make the stuff look great.” Gotta make this stuff look great? “Hey…there’s also form follows emotion.” And there’s also gratifying returns follow wise investment. There’s also that.