Form & Function, a rebranded series of Shining the Spotlight, will continue to work with designers to deep dive into the design process of footwear while expanding its scope to showcase the process of other creative talents within the footwear industry. For our first iteration, we brought back Brett Goliff, Creative Director & Leader at Snibbs, founder at Ethics & Footwear Design Consultant, to discuss the design process of his latest project, the EQLZ 360.
Brett Golliff first joined EQLZ, a start-up brand based in Shanghai, back in 2021 and fully started working with them in the summer of 2022 to create a line of basketball shoes driven by the idea of “feel.” “What I love about the way we approach EQLZ, it’s very different compared to what I’ve been a part of, even in the car world and footwear world. It’s really about the feel of the game, and feeling means a lot”, Golliff explains. “There’s obviously internal feeling, the way you feel about how you’re playing, the passion and the drive of it. But it’s also the feel on the foot and the feel for the court.” Building around “feeling,” the initial design process of what would be called the EQLZ 360 was aesthetics-driven, with decisions being made around form rather than around function. “We knew enough about basketball shoes and basketball construction to make it a performance shoe that we were just pushing on it to be really high visuals”, Golliff explains. Although the team understood how the visuals of the iconic basketball shoes made them feel emotionally, the real challenge was understanding how those were created.
“the basis of the 360 was to create a shoe that would be able to change directions with the player at any moment”
Then came Aaron Cooper, one of the legendary Nike designers that led the golden age of basketball shoes. “When Aaron came on board he was able to build the bridge we needed. He helped guide me and my inspiration to interpret it for the speed of the game. It encapsulated all of our goals to make a performance product that was visually inspiring”, Golliff explains. “He really helped us break down the silhouettes to make them have true depth and meaning.” Crafting the shoes around true performance naturally led to the vision of crafting around the game. Despite each era getting faster and players becoming more adaptable to different positions, the team managed to divide the game into three distinct playstyles. One style was constant movement, being able to flow and have control of the court, which led to the creation of the 247. The 360 would be around the shiftiest player on the planet. With the athletes having the ability to change directions and their movements in all directions. “The basis of the 360 was to create a shoe that would be able to change directions with the player at any moment. As they shifted, the shoe would shift with them. It would have 360 degrees of support, allowing for the shoe to rotate with them. Hence the name 360”, Golliff explains.
“since taking an Anatomy class in college, I have always rooted my designs to the foot”
In terms of translating the idea into design, the initial idea was to start at the bottom and wrap it up. However, halfway through the design process, Brett Golliff paused to rebuild the design of the shoe. “Since taking an Anatomy class in college, I have always rooted my designs to the foot. I paused and went backwards to develop the break points of the 360 with new anatomical studies. As naturally movement was the key to this”, Golliff explains. Drawing how each piece of the shoe fit in with the anatomy and how they come together changed the direction of how the 360 was designed. “Now it became this mentality that there isn’t a starting point, and there really isn’t an ending point”, Golliff explains. “I had to start over to go forward, and it just became this holistic piece.”
“it was definitely more of a philosophical statement, but it was, how do you capture speed while it’s standing still?”
As the pieces of the shoes locked in, the visuals of the shoe followed. Being built for the shiftiest players, the inspiration behind the shoes naturally gravitated towards the cheetah, the shiftiest and fastest animal on the planet. “Constant movement was the key element to make the shoe visually look like it is moving at the same time”, Golliff explains. This was naturally followed up with the sand element, which Brett Golliff had worked on while in the automotive industry. “It was definitely more of a philosophical statement, but it was, how do you capture speed while it’s standing still?” Golliff explains.
This idea was captured through the movements of the cheetah hitting the ground. While the paws of the cheetah were represented through the moulded fingers wrapping around the sides, the outsole pattern and the print on the knit upper were used to represent the movement of the dirt exploding. Starting from the bottom, the movement of the sand grains was achieved with the help of computational designer David Burpee. “He’s just incredible at all things algorithmic-based designs”, Golliff explains. “I’ve been drawing for decades but didn’t have the manufacturing capability to be able to do it, and his deep approach to developing each one of those codes and algorithms is just incredible. And he really took this to the next level.” The movement of the sand naturally transitioned onto the print on the knit pattern. With the characteristics of knit being grid-based, the ability to visualise the flowing lines of dust was achieved through Brett Golliff’s human touch. “I found the pattern to draw easiest by hand, so I drew each one of the squares in the knit and made it have the movement almost like a bit map”, Golliff explains. “Then I would take it into Illustrator, remake it, and it became this beautiful print and flow. It became this amazing process of human to machine, and it really brought this whole thing together.”
“just shifting who I am, and how I create and how I think”
Overall, with the release of the 360, followed by the successful release of the 247, Brett Golliff reflects on the whole project and his time working with his long-time friend and mentor, Aaron Cooper. Despite Aaron Cooper joining later in the process, Brett Golliff describes the work dynamic as cohesive, with the two working in parallel on both the 247 and the 360. On the 247, Aaron Cooper was the visionary, with Brett Golliff taking on the role of a junior designer and helping to execute. On the flip side, Brett Golliff would lead the design of the 360, with Aaron Cooper guiding him throughout the process. “It’s honestly a dream of mine. I feel like I had my master’s in design before this, especially the business side and the understanding of it. But he’s taking it to a doctorate level”, Golliff explains. “Really helping me see what I always knew needed to be done, but just didn’t know how to do it properly. And just shifting who I am, and how I create and how I think, and also how I make decisions.”
“everything that we’re doing with these shoes truly is about performance”
For the EQLZ itself, it has seen unprecedented success which cannot simply be down to good fortune. Understanding their vision and how they engaged in the design process, it is easy to see how much the brand cares about driving the game forward. With Brett Gollliff and Aaron Cooper, the brand committed to a project that would create three entirely separate silhouettes, a significant investment for a startup brand, considering the initial R&D and manufacturing costs for a single sole unit. “Everything that we’re doing with these shoes truly is about performance. And you can’t potato head for lack of a better term; put other parts together and expect that you’re going to have the best performing options for your athletes”, Golliff explains. “We came in with the purpose that we were doing three different tooling sets to create three different speeds of the game. That is driving us to keep pushing innovation through.” With the 360 currently out, Brett Golliff believes it will have a similar success to the 247. As more brands enter the basketball space, the idea of colour and big branding simply isn’t enough to convince the masses. Instead, people are “wanting the feel for the court and the game”, being able to have something that acts as “an extension of them as a player.” And that is exactly what EQLZ has achieved with Brett Golliff and Aaron Cooper, adhering to the philosophy, form follows function. “It’s been a very validating process. I might have thought, going into projects, that the cultural movement was created around the look”, Golliff explains. “But realistically, a cultural movement of footwear is created around the game and the performance of it in the feel of it, and it becomes a movement when you create the movement.”
“EQLZ is a young brand. We have significant business hurdles to overcome as we continue to grow our consumer base. Aaron and I have multiple projects that are in the works to keep growing the product line and brand. Ethics is in the midst of a rebirth and we are very proud for where that is going over the coming months. At Snibbs, I am proud of our current rebrand and website rollout. That will lead into two new shoes and our original apparel line releasing over Q1 of ’25. I feel like we are just getting started with who we are and what we will become is inspiring. I am also helping a young brand, Stria Sport; revamp where their future product line goes. That has been a fun journey as well. I stay motivated by my passion to create great footwear. Regardless of the category or sport, I am always down to work with those that have a vision to change how footwear can be created. I am always growing our industry.”
Image source via Brett Golliff & EQLZ
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