Hi I am Carson Whittaker, a footwear designer currently working for Reebok. I am, by all accounts, a sneakerhead. My obsession with sneakers started when I was ten, the first time I saw Tracy McGrady’s signature shoe. I have been drawing sneakers ever since.
While I was earning my undergraduate degree, I was desperate to find a way to work with sneakers and I stumbled upon a YouTube video of an artist painting sneakers. The next day I created my first pair of custom footwear using craft paint and a pair of Vans. Over time, I improved my skills and gained some notoriety from the sneakerhead community. A couple of years later, in what seemed like over night, my work was featured by every major sneaker blog in the world within a single day. I was not prepared for the demand I started to receive and I had to learn on the fly to be able to juggle six classes and a booming business.
After graduating, I continued to create custom footwear but I wasn’t fully satisfied. My dream since I was young was to design sneakers, not work off of other people's designs and being limited to just changing the colors. This led me to pursuing my master’s in industrial design, in order to learn the necessary skills and put myself in a better position to work in the footwear industry.