Cedric Mitchell Featured in Nike Air Max Pre-Day Campaign
by cedric mitchell
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In April 2022, Nike featured Los Angeles glass artist and designer Cedric Mitchell in its Air Max Pre-Day campaign. The story connected the shoe’s retro silhouette and bright color palette with Mitchell’s vibrant glass practice, personal style, and love of 1980s design.
Presented through Nike’s Air Style by Ade, the campaign placed contemporary glass, sneaker culture, workwear, and color inside the same visual conversation.
View the archived Nike Air Max Pre-Day campaign featuring Cedric Mitchell.
Cedric Mitchell x Nike Air Max Pre-Day
The Nike Air Max Pre-Day draws from the visual language of the late 1970s and early 1980s while presenting it through a contemporary Air Max design. That mix of retro influence, modern construction, and bold color made the campaign a natural fit for my work.
My glass practice also begins with familiar references and pushes them into another context. Memphis design, hip-hop, graffiti, streetwear, architecture, and pop culture all move through the work, but the finished objects speak in their own language.
That shared energy became the center of the Nike feature.
Cedric Mitchell working in glass for Nike’s Air Max Pre-Day feature.
A Handmade Glass Nike Sign
For the campaign, I brought Nike’s visual identity into the hot shop through a handmade glass Nike sign.
Glass is a material built around timing, movement, and heat. It does not allow you to pause and reconsider every decision. You respond in real time, working with the material while it is still alive.
That physical process gave the familiar Nike mark another kind of energy. The sign was not printed or manufactured by a machine. It was formed by hand through heat, gravity, and collaboration.
The result connected the speed and movement associated with Air Max to the rhythm of glassmaking.
Workwear, Muted Tones and Pops of Color
Personal style was another important part of the Nike campaign.
“I would describe my style as based around workwear, with a lot of muted things and pops of color.”
That balance also exists in my design practice. Strong color becomes more powerful when it has room to breathe. A neutral foundation can make a saturated red, blue, yellow, or green feel even more intentional.
Workwear makes sense for the studio because it is functional, durable, and honest. The pop of color brings in personality.
Cedric Mitchell wearing the Nike Air Max Pre-Day.
Color Connects Sneaker Culture and Glass
Sneakers and glass may seem like separate worlds, but both can carry identity, memory, and culture through color and form.
A sneaker can change the energy of an entire outfit. A glass object can do the same thing within a room.
In both cases, proportion matters. Material matters. The relationship between function and expression matters.
The Air Max Pre-Day campaign recognized that connection and placed a working glass studio inside a broader conversation about design and personal style.
From Glass Artist to Multidisciplinary Designer
The Nike feature arrived during an important period in the growth of Cedric Mitchell Design.
Glass was the foundation, but the work was already moving toward a larger multidisciplinary practice shaped by objects, drinkware, lighting, furniture, interiors, fashion, and cultural collaborations.
Projects like Nike Air Max Pre-Day helped place glass in spaces where it is not always expected. That has remained central to my practice.
I want to bring glass into the culture, not keep it separated from the music, fashion, design, and everyday experiences that shape how people live.
Nike Air Max Pre-Day Through the Lens of Modern Funk
The phrase Modern Funk describes the visual language that has continued to grow through my work.
It combines bold color, playful geometry, movement, asymmetry, and cultural memory. It takes cues from Memphis Milano and postmodern design while filtering them through hip-hop, streetwear, Black visual culture, and my own journey from Tulsa to Los Angeles.
The Nike campaign captured an early version of that language through clothing, footwear, color, and the energy of the hot shop.
Explore the Nike Feature and Cedric Mitchell Design
The 2022 Nike Air Max Pre-Day campaign brought together glassmaking, sneaker culture, personal style, and retro color through the story of Cedric Mitchell.