As our latest featured creative, we spoke to Kevin Bui–also known as @kevinconcepts— about his beginnings, his progression, and the direction of his conscious-driven work.
The Portland-based creator’s love for sneakers is a familiar one; instilled from an early age, Kevin’s infatuation derived by sheer coincidence. As an athlete, his introduction to footwear came about through association. Whether hitting the hardwood or running track, the inevitability of running into the world of sneakers was only a matter of time.
While sports remained a pivotal role in his journey, his artistic interest was just as detrimental. When not playing sports, his time would be spent working on art projects; with the praise of peers and teachers, Bui’s new-found confidence allowed him to interject his love for sports, art, and footwear into one.
“As my love for sneakers developed, I found myself sketching and creating art projects inspired by various Jordans and Nikes,” says Bui. Of that list, one specific model propelled his interest; the Jordan 4. Its unique design and color blocking was unlike anything he had seen before and began to use the aforementioned sneaker as reference for his work. From canvas paintings to coffee tables, his early days of creative assortments allowed him to sell his work to members of a Facebook community and furthered his involvement with hand-made products.
His preoccupation with sneakers extended pass fascination and led into an ongoing ambitious goal to join footwear giants Nike as a Product Developer. Kevin’s first taste of said goal came in the form of a High School project, “we had an assignment where we had to job shadow someone in a career field that we were interested in. I immediately knew where I wanted to shadow and luckily my teacher had connections to people who worked at Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon“.
This dream seemed even closer while attending Portland State University–as a Marketing Major–where he would find himself as a Sales Athlete in Nike’s Community Store. However, an opportunity would not present itself and the difficulties of joining Nike seemed a distant achievement. He goes on to explain that, “it is extremely competitive to land a role at Nike Headquarters. They receive thousands of applications daily and people will move across the country just to have an opportunity to work there. If you don’t have a foot in the door or have networked with people in the areas that you want to work in, it’ll be difficult to land a role”. So much so, that he jokingly explains how landing a role as a gym attendant was out of the question.
But through his frustation, the creative mind did what seemed necessary for his personal development. After some time and no fruitful leads, Kevin Bui decided to quit his Nike retail job and began paving his own path: “Realizing the lack of opportunities at the Nike Store and the need for more time to connect with folks out on campus, I decided to quit Nike and began networking heavily while working on personal projects“.
This same determination led to some of his most recognizable work. While his style and work is not confined by one-off projects or redundancy, one theme remains consistent; the conscious-driven creative utilizes scrapped sneaker components to create everyday items like wallets or upcycles shoe boxes to create home items like planter covers/lampshades. His ingenuity derives from his time at Nike, “My motivation for upcycling sneaker scraps and shoe boxes stems from my time at the Nike Store where we would toss shoe boxes or sent out sneakers to be grind up. I felt that those items could’ve been repurposed better,” and thus subsequently leading to his projects.
While his efforts to land a Product Development position within Nike remain the same, his creative path has allowed him to step foot into other doors. Garnering attention from online publication such as ours, retailers like Finish Line have also taken interest. His collaborative projects range from footwear customization to reconstructed wallets made from sneaker scraps, to lamps made out of bags and shoe remains.
Although the pandemic has slowed much of normalcy, “the world is still getting back on its feet,” says Bui, “so I’ll be using this time to continue developing my skills and seeing where being a creative can really take me“. His progression is evident, but throughout it all his core sentiments remain, he wishes to impact the next generation in any way, shape or form and connect with like-minded individuals.
It was a privilege to have Kevin Bui as our first feautured artist and allowing us this opportunity. Keep a lookout for future creatives and for similar stories, be sure to check out our Small Town Sneakerhead segment.
