Peter Moore: Art As Shoe As Art

“Quite frankly, I didn’t know what the hell I wanted to be,” Moore said of his college life. “I was pretty sure I didn’t want to starve. That had no particular appeal to me at all. I had no ambition to be a bohemian.”

Peter Moore was a creative director at Nike and Adidas. Image via Adidas

He seemed like a great artist to me.

Getting to Nike when I did, the first moments of 1980, Peter Moore and Rob Strasser basically jumped all over my ass re Running magazine. Great fun.

My life – suddenly with a suitable salary and a lavish expense account, not to mention free shoes – became their side hustle.

Together, Peter and I designed and redesigned the magazine’s logo, created marketing materials, etc. Intense for somebody coming out of the dark. Didn’t exactly end well for me at the magazine, but not Peter’s fault.

Later we worked on the first annual report. You have no idea how difficult it is sometimes to find just the right words to appease everyfuckingbody, including the government and guys who might not be multi-millionaires if you screw up.

After neither of us were at Nike, ’88 I imagine, he designed mayoral campaign literature for a race I was advising.

“I know a guy,” I had told the candidate. “A talented guy.”

And I did.

Elections results put my candidate, once a front-runner, below ‘None Of The Above.’ Not Peter’s fault. (Another story.)

Moore’s design of the logo for the Air Jordan line.

Peter Moore taught me about white space and listened to my ideas.

He patiently described the difference between ‘not good enough’ and ‘that’s it!’

We had trouble with, first of all, the logo for the magazine. RUNNING.

For you young people, please note the simplicity.

When you are arguably the second title of the sport, the good names are still available.

Peter was an artist, I was a runner, we were seeking a sense of movement.

RUMMING. I think somebody else finally needed to tell us, ‘less flow, more herky-jerky.’

Digression. Maybe I was in Reno before Nike had its own apparel and I was wearing a hand-stitched Nike shirt and this drunk comes zig-zagging down the street towards me and I see him look at the scripted logo on my chest with his vacant eyes and look at me with those same eyes – a blink of recognition! – and he implored, “MIKE. MIKE.”