What does it mean to have your own signature sneaker? For adidas Skateboarding pro Kader Sylla, it's a trip.

Kader joins Mike Guillory on Coffee Time Kicks to break down his adidas signature skate shoe, from the first conversations to the details most people will never notice. He wanted a slightly pointier toe for flick, and a split toe you rarely see on skate shoes anymore. Most of all, he wanted a shoe he could jump down a twenty stair in and still feel fine the next day. That led to cushioning that runs through the entire sole instead of just the heel, which Kader says hasn't been done on an adidas before.

They also get into the lacing system that tucks laces inside the shoe so they don't rip, the metallic sparkle hidden in the purple stripes, the snakeskin-style black and yellow second colorway, and what it's meant to share all of it with his family.

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Rick Maderis has spent more than twenty years inside adidas, Nike, Jordan Brand and Curry Brand, working on the graphics, color and storytelling that rarely get a name attached. Now he runs Burnside Knives in Portland, and you can see the sneaker brain in every piece.

Rick and I played phone tag for close to a year before this happened, and it was worth the wait. We talk about the fire drills that end up producing better work, tilting the adidas trefoil fifteen degrees and hearing about it, why retros carry more pressure than new shoes, the Doernbecher Air Jordan 15, and asking whether you're the right person for a project before you say yes. Then it's knives: how a sneaker graphic designer ended up with KNIVES on his license plate, why the handle is a magma grip and not elephant print, and the Lost Lake Easter egg hidden in the Cabrillo 2.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Coming up: the Doernbecher kid, and the other side of the river

00:30 Why this conversation took a year

01:57 The conversation starts

03:39 A coloring book and a grandfather

03:57 Art school to adidas, Jordan and Curry Brand

06:27 Is getting moved around good or bad for creatives?

10:46 Big brands vs small teams: who actually does the work

12:35 Fire drills and better work

17:41 Redrawing a grail Jordan pattern from scratch

20:26 Jason Mayden: make them feel something

22:11 Tilting the trefoil 15 degrees

25:13 Sharpening every single edge

26:24 Breaking the Jordan formula

30:26 Why kids should watch the WNBA

36:34 CCS, 5 a.m. phones and skate catalogs

38:47 The Doernbecher Air Jordan 15

43:12 Lewis Latimer, Bruce Lee, and asking first

47:37 Why heritage collections get cut first

50:50 How he got into PENSOLE

55:24 Leaks, mockups and Easter at the drugstore

1:01:08 How Burnside Knives started

1:04:20 Why it's called Burnside

1:07:15 KNIVES on the license plate

1:09:45 Making something that outlives us

1:14:14 Magma grip, not elephant print

1:20:50 The Lost Lake Easter egg

1:26:00 Sneakers made us better storytellers

1:33:02 Where to find Rick

FIND RICK

Rick's work: https://www.rickmaderis.com

Burnside Knives: https://burnsideknives.com

Instagram: @maderis and @burnsideknives

His eyewear side project, IIVNI: https://iivni.com

MORE FROM ME

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@NickatSneakerHistory

The Sneaker Newsletter: https://www.thesneakernewsletter.com

Sneaker History: https://sneakerhistory.com

My first book, Small Luxuries: Sneakers, out October 2026: https://bookshop.org/a/122044/9798317900854

Rick sent me the Burnside knife we talk about in this episode. Full video coming soon on the YouTube channel.

Tell someone you like their kicks today. You never know how far a compliment will take you. And we all know how good it feels to be on the receiving end of some appreciation.

Jason Mayden walked into Jordan Brand in 2001 as its first design intern. He designed the Air Jordan 2009 and the Jordan CP3.II, left in 2014 to build his own companies, and came back a decade later to run design for the entire brand. This past May he stepped out of that job into one that did not exist until he took it, VP of Jordan Visioneering and LA28 Creative Lead.

We talked about the Air Jordan 41, and about almost everything except the spec sheet.

He explains what he had to unpack coming back into the building, and lands on the line that frames the whole conversation, that this is a reverential era and not a referential one. He responds to what Leo Chang and Donald Kelsey found on the road this year, six months of research across three continents where not one young athlete asked for the heritage colors. He makes the case that the women's game is where the next real change in basketball footwear comes from, and explains why he studies technical boxing to think about design.

He talks about the Air Jordan XX3 and working alongside Mark Smith, Tinker Hatfield, and Tom Foxen when the fight was over solvent free glue. He talks about the crew building the game shoe now, and what it was like to watch them come into their own. He talks about criticism, and why indifference is the only reaction that would bother him.

And he tells the story of being seven years old in a hospital bed, fighting a blood infection, imagining himself as Lucius Fox working for Michael Jordan, who he thought was Bruce Wayne. That is where the word visioneering comes from.

One line from this conversation has stayed with me since we recorded it. You never really finish an Air Jordan, you just run out of time.

Nick Engvall has worked in the sneaker industry for over two decades. He built the original Eastbay Blog during his time at Sole Collector, led the first dedicated sneaker team for Complex, led the first UGC and seeding programs for Finish Line, was employee number 9 at StockX, and was Sr. Director at Stadium Goods.

• The Sneaker Newsletter: https://www.thesneakernewsletter.com
• Sole Collector: https://www.solecollector.org
• Small Luxuries: Sneakers, out October 2026 from Motorbooks: https://bookshop.org/a/122044/9798317900854

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