Ball boy loses fight with gravity, dignity

During a first-round match at the U.S. Open, a ball boy attempting to look cool while doing his work discovered physics has no sympathy for you, no matter how many balls you have.

At a critical point in Tuesday's match between Andy Murray and Ernests Gulbis, this ball boy tried to catch a runaway ball by hurdling a advertising board on the sidelines. As you can see from the video, his plan worked poorly.

The ball boy was apparently uninjured and is looking forward to spending the rest of his life trying to live down a video that's now plastered across all corners of the internet and on every news outlet's sports-highlight reels.

Boat Shoes Inspired by Run-DMC and Michael Jackson

Boat shoes are not just for preppies anymore. Rockport has teamed up with deejay to the stars DJ Cassidy to create a version of the classic Bridgeport boat shoe that gets inspiration from Run-DMC and Michael Jackson.

DJ Cassidy is often seen wearing the Adidas shelltoe sneakers made famous by Run-DMC in the early eighties. To pay homage to the Hip Hop icons, Cassidy designed a special elastic component under the tongue so that the boat shoe may be worn comfortably without laces.

For the colours of the boat shoe, Cassidy looked to what he considers the greatest outfit of all time – Michael Jackson’s ensemble in the “Billie Jean” video of a black leather suit, red bow tie, pink shirt and pink socks (not sure I’d pick that one as the greatest outfit, but whatever). To celebrate this legendary look, the DJ Cassidy Bridgeport boat shoe is constructed of soft pink perforated leather, a red canvas upper, and a black pinstripe. The shoe also features gold eyelets and a custom pink terry cloth footbed. Yes, preppies would die if they saw this.


In honor of the King Of Pop, Rockport has produced 50 limited edition pairs numbered 1–50 to commemorate each year of his life. The shoe comes packaged in a custom DJ Cassidy shoe box complete with pink tissue paper, red satin bow tie and personalized card from Cassidy detailing his inspirations. Rockport is offering a limited number of pairs for sale at New York’s Blue & Cream beginning this month. I have no idea what they cost, but I can’t imagine it will be cheap.

Boat Shoes Inspired by Run-DMC and Michael Jackson

Def Jam Rapstar

It’s not just about the music, but the lifestyle… Def Jam Rapstar delivers a true, unique hip-hop experience that allows players to take on the role of a rapstar. You will feel like a star emcee on stage, and you will see your star power and status be determined by your talent and skills. Def Jam Rapstar is about perfecting your flow so you can rhyme and sing along with the greatest hip-hop tracks. Def Jam Rapstar will create opportunities where it’s also about developing all new rhymes, sharing your creativity and expressing yourself to the wider community and the world.



Key Features

• Def Jam Rapstar is the first and true hip-hop music game of its kind
• Glamorous and sleek look and feel of game interface that helps to immerse players into the hip-hop lifestyle
• Def Jam Rapstar leverages 30 years of hip-hop and provides players a vault of tracks from all eras and music labels
• Def Jam Rapstar will feature tracks from the biggest rap stars in hip-hop: US and worldwide
• Incorporates pitch recognition and speech/phoneme recognition technology to asses a player’s tune, timing and accuracy. Also features improved and optimized speech recognition to accurately determine what the player is saying, even in a noisy room, and provide live feedback of the player’s performance
• Using the Xbox Live Vision Camera and PlayStation Eye, Def Jam Rapstar puts players in the game and delivers the experience of being a real life rapstar. The player’s image is separated from the background at the start of each performance so that after the song, performances can be viewed and edited using various lighting, sound, and green screen effects to simulate a real studio, stage or impromptu performance
• A fully integrated online community allows players to upload their rap videos directly from the console to DefJamRapstar.com. Players can share their videos with the world to gain global recognition and even become a real life Def Jam star! The experience is one of self-expression and self-promotion
• Free Style modes allow the player to rap and sing their own lyrics over pre-created “scratch” instrumental tracks
• Two Players Local; More with Pass The Mic and other modes
• Multiplayer Battle and Co-op Modes let players perform together as crews. In battle mode, players alternate rhyming lyrics round robin style, competing for the highest score. In Co-op mode, both players sing and rap together to achieve the highest scores on each level

As seen at GamesCom, Def Jam Rapstar will cater to a global audience by spotlighting tracks from popular artists from around the world as hip-hop has become a global phenomena and reaching millions of fans.

The new screenshots show off updates to the sleek in-game elements, as well as giving a glimpse at its cutting edge community features as player’s rep their territories and take the battle online.

Shattering Door

Remember that scene in A Series of Unfortunate Events, where a witchy Meryl Streep is terrified of a door knob ’shattering into a thousand pieces’? Imagine what she’d be like if she happened upon Argentinian artist, Leandro Erlich’s eye-popping ‘Shattering Door’. She’d not be dancing on the bed to ABBA songs, that’s for sure. Wrong film? Maybe. Still, Erlich’s work might look like a health and safety officer’s worst nightmare but, trust us, no-one was harmed during their creation. Not even the poor souls trapped in the ‘Smoking Room’ (It’s a room. That smokes), those caught underneath the surface of the ‘Swimming Pool’, or seemingly caught between this life and the next, in the ghostly ‘Cabinet Du Psy’.

Leandro Erlich makes installations which play with our concept of what’s real, which way’s up, and what’s on the other side of the mirror. He’ll allow us to enter a space, move around it, touch it and inhabit it, yet still feel utterly lost. He says “reality is something we are dealt… but the final product of reality is a matter of major construction made by us.” In other words, it’s not what’s out there. It’s what’s inside that counts. No matter how strange and otherwordly his dreamlike creations, it’s how our minds interpret these set pieces – that’s where the magic begins…

Adidas ZX700 Boat – Grey Suede

Available now for pre-order and going for $122 is this pair of Adidas ZX700 Boat shoes. This particular version sports an aluminum-coloured upper constructed from suede, along with yellow accents on the heel panel. The toebox sports a moccasin style, while the upper sits a top a white midsole. Look for them now for pre-order.

Adidas ORIGINALS BY QUBIC 5 Shoes

ORIGINALS BY QUBIC. THE SHOES.

It’s about high time to unveil the five completed shoes from our “Originals By Qubic” feature, which was revealed on Friday night in our big Qubic Celebrates Originals event, alongside the opening reception of Kazuki’s FW09 O By O adidas collection. On the night itself all five of us were also given the chance to explain our design in person to the crowd in a group interview session hosted by adidas, where we all learnt new things and insights about each other’s designs and inspirations behind our finished shoes.

I hope you’ll enjoy what the five Originals have come up with below, and that you will take the time to read each individual’s inspirations, watch their videos, and vote for your favourite design.

ORIGINALS BY QUBIC - FRANK LIEW
/// ADIDAS GAZELLE
Founder, Qubic Store, quarters boutique

Being that this is my personal blog, I thought I’d best kick it off by explaining and elaborating a little on my own design for this project.

Initially when I looked at the program I really wanted to do a Superstar 80’s, or just a Superstar 1, since, as you may recall from my video interview, it was my first pair of adidas sneakers that I purchased from a local sports store some time in the mid 90’s. Unfortunately, only the Superstar II was available and in the end, I chose the Gazelle - more for the classic thin adidas tongue than anything else - something that I personally feel is one of the most iconic features of a true adidas “Originals” shoe.

Nowadays, as I’m sure with most that have been doing this a while, I’m finding myself wearing more muted and simple designs when it comes to footwear. All well and good, but at the same time I thought it would be rather silly to just present everybody a simple two colour shoe, given that half of the industry also seems to be heading down this minimalistic design path. Yet at the same time I wanted this design to be something that I would want to wear personally everyday, so I decided to come to a compromise.

Instead of choosing a variety of colours, I opted to apply different textures and materials to segment the panels - a soft nubuck for the sides and the stripes, whilst selecting premium leather for the toe cap, lace holes, and heel tab. I also blacked out the heel tab and trefoil logo - just to add a subtle touch for the adidas branding on the shoe itself. Although not immediately obvious to the eye, I thought the subtle change in texture created a nice segmentation between the major panels of the shoe, and is more noticeable when you hold the shoes in your hands. I wanted people to have the ability to get up and close with the shoe to really appreciate it for the smaller details.

The final touch - I wanted to place something on the shoe that would create a little impact, but not so much that it would be glaringly obvious. The idea came as I was sitting in my chair looking at the underside of my shoes, so the ‘pop’ in the design ended up being the fuschia outsole, which I thought worked well against the cool grey nubuck/leather upper. In the end, the shoe is meant to look quite muted and understated once you are standing in them, or sitting with your feet on the ground. However, as you’re walking, people can get a quick glimpse of the brighter outsole to break up the simple dual tone upper colour scheme.

ORIGINALS BY QUBIC - CHRIS LEWIS
Art Director, TBWA\WHYBIN
/// ADIDAS ZX700

The design scheme behind Chris Lewis’ shoe originates from his 10 year background as a graphic designer. A tribute to the CMYK process colour model, Chris chose this theme due to the medium that most of his work appears in – in printed media - posters, advertisments, billboards, logos, flyers and the like. With CMYK such a backbone of the colour printing industry, Chris placed the four colours on a white/white ZX700, creating a wild looking yet very structured colour scheme. The shoe also features various materials, including mesh toe caps and side vents, along with suede accents on the lace holes and heel tab. The “|||” embroidered onto the side of the shoe also represents the three adidas stripes, with the original stripes camouflaged amongst the side panel.

ORIGINALS BY QUBIC - SEAN AICKIN
/// ADIDAS ZX700
Photographer, Wellington

Although the Superstar I was his favourite shoe, Sean decided to choose the ZX700 as his platform due to the amount of customisation available to the model in the program. The design was in homage to his other passion - photography, and his favourite film of choice – 35mm black and white. With only grayscale colours (black, white, grey), Sean put together his submission with the addition of the “desert pattern” – a pattern that closely resembles an effect in film printing, where the developer heats the film up to a certain temperature to create a crackled effect. The underlying message – if you heat the film too much it burns, but if done exactly right and in balance, it creates the correct effect, much like the colours and patterns applied to his shoe. Not too much, and not too little.

ORIGINALS BY QUBIC - KEVIN DOWNIE
/// ADIDAS FORUM
Business Owner, Dunedin

Kevin Downie’s creation is a mix of classic colourways, local support, and nostalgia from his childhood as a youth growing up in the UK. A member of the “casuals” football and fashion movement of the 80’s, the Forum mid was the perfect opportunity for him to relive one of his many fond memories involving adidas, which was the only shoe to be worn at the time. Having bought his first Forum Mid over a decade over in New York, he managed to break necks all over his home town when he returned with them on his feet, as they hadn’t been released in the UK at that time. As an independent business owner himself, Kevin is a staunch supporter of local business, so the colour scheme is dedicated to a local independently owned beer brand, one of his favourite brews as a beer enthusiast.

ORIGINALS BY QUBIC - WOODY
/// ADIDAS ZX700
Editor, Sneaker Freaker Magazine (Australia)

Going into this project, Woody maintained Sneaker Freaker’s collaboration record by continuing on with yet another old running model, the ZX700. Some of Woody’s favourite adidas creations have been silhouettes in their running range, so it was no surprise when we unveiled his design on the night. After seeing hundreds of shoes every month, Woody wanted to create something a little simple but not too plain, so in the end opted for a solid monotone pale blue upper to match one of his favourite Maharishi jackets, with a bright white contrasting midsole and lace combination to break it up a little. A bright yet solid combination of colours.

Timex WS4

The Timex® Expedition® WS4™ watch is a unique product to the market, that combines functionality with cool style.

The revolutionary wide-screen dashboard provides altitudinal, barometric and temperature readings at a glance, along with the built-in compass to point you in the right direction. Powered by our most advanced sensors and intuitive user-interface, you can start using your WS4 watch the moment it comes out of the box, and rely on it in the most extreme conditions.

The WS4™ will be shipped to you in an ecologically-friendly, re-usable box.

Whether you're hitting the slopes, exploring the Great Outdoors or simply enjoying your local surroundings, grab your WS4™ and get ready to go out of bounds.

JLS MLB Jackets

Look out for the guys from JLS sporting these specially designed baseball jackets one of our clients had made for the guys for there upcoming book tour.

Momo x Y-3 Hayworth Mid II

New York-based artist Momo has created a special collection of footwear with the adidas collaborative collection with Yohji Yamamoto, Y-3. Based on the Hayworth Mid II, the shoe offers plenty of creative real estate with three different styles featuring the iconic and colorful styles of Momo. The shoes are rumoured to be limited to 350 pairs worldwide with a suggested retail price of $320 USD. The shoes will be available in September in Asia, October 1st in Europe and in the beginning of October in the US.