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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