DAMON WAY - DC SHOES

I take it the DC Artist series was your influence at work?
Correct… The program at its inception was more or less an extension of my personal life outside of the day-to-day business of DC. Somehow I was able to link the two into a project that worked for the brand.

Can you offer a bit of background to the project?
The program was actually the result of my friendship with Sheppard Fairy. We had a number of conversations in 2000 about exploring the idea of pooling our creative talents together in a way that represented what I was doing with DC and his artistic medium Obey. What spawned out of that was the Artist Projects, a collaborative program between DC and artistic individuals that have a level of relevance to skateboard/street culture. When Sheppard and I started on this it was unexplored territory, so it made the whole thing really special. Since then the whole space has become incredibly diluted by other brands doing similar things, which in many ways has worked to erode the whole niche aspect of it. Despite that I am still very inspired and enthused to keep working with creative individuals in this way. It has in so many ways been one of the most rewarding projects that I have worked on in the last 10 or so years at DC, most notably the friendships that have resulted from them.

It’s an amazing roster of collaborators... You’ve obviously got the trust of these guys to put the deal together. I’m wondering whether you just let the guys go crazy and do whatever they want, or do you temper their designs with a little bit of commercial direction?
Without a doubt, trust is the biggest factor here and without it, none of these projects would have happened. For me the process of working with an artist is driven by my absolute respect for their work and the relationship that is created by working together.
When it comes to the product I can only offer my perspective and opinion. The result ultimately comes down to what they want to do and whether or not we can execute it. I have worked hard to support the individual and their ideas without injecting too much influence into the process other than challenging our development team to give us the best-executed result that they can on each project.