The solution to telling the story of this invisible technology was to make the fun, giddy bounce React delivers and the feeling of running in them actually visible. The idea was that inside all of us is a secret runner, an alternate version of ourselves that most of us haven’t been in touch with since we were kids. The Nike Reacts, with their addictive bounciness, gave you access to that inner runner and gave you immediate desire to take off running. The creative idea was to give that sensation—and the runner inside all of us—a visual representation, allowing everyday non-runners a chance to actually create their running avatar as they experienced the shoes in real-time and in a public place.

We brought the invisible inner runners into unmissable gargantuan screens, by summoning forth ethereal avatars of light, fur and particles. To accomodate for the choices and movement of each unique player, all the visuals where dynamically generated based on the acceleration, speed and position of the players. This data was captured by the hardware and streamed back and forth between every screen in the flow in real time. Nothing was pre-rendered.

With that tech as the foundation, we created a crowd-pleasing visual spectacle that reflects the energetic nature of the Nike Reacts, featuring all 3 runners at once. No matter the dynamic combinations, the result is always harmonious thanks to a strong art direction of color, shape and scale.

The multidisciplinary effort led developers to think like artists, artists to see through code, and engineers to push the limits of experiential structures to support an all-out 8 week sprint from conception to finish.