Converse

Overview

Converse is the ultimate story of a performance product transcending its purpose to become a cultural staple. That story rings true with basketball and the Chuck Taylor, but this time, the focus was on running and a series of vintage silhouettes. To mark the release of these four new silhouettes—each drawing from the brand’s archive of ‘80s and ‘90s runners—Converse engaged WØRKS to create a series of collages that could create a connection between past and present, while living across campaigns, regions, and languages. The collages would carry a built-in familiarity — a sense of history being assembled in real time. The goal was to bring these shoes back into conversation with their own history, using materials from the archive itself. Converse opened its archives to WØRKS, offering a look at decades of design ephemera—advertisements, technical sketches, and material studies. These weren’t simply references; they became the raw materials. To bring them to life, WØRKS enlisted the talents of a friend and frequent collaborator David Carson. As one of the most influential graphic designers of the past few decades, David Carson’s instinct-driven approach to typography and composition helped define an era—rejecting the rigid structures of traditional design in favor of something more raw, expressive, and human. That unique sensibility made him the perfect collaborator for this project. Carson approached each collage the way he does all of his work—by hand, by instinct, and without a strict formula. The result is a series of compositions that are pulled from Converse’s running heritage and shaped by the same energy that originally defined these shoes.