SNS Presents: New Balance M770

Originally released back in the early ‘80s, the New Balance 770 has been a running shoe icon for years to come. Now, the Flimby-made low-top retro sneaker gets a special treatment quite like none-other before, recycling upper-leftovers of three different New Balance 1500. Fusing the unique patterns of the M1500PRA, M1500PRT, and M1500NBG, the New Balance R770PRT unites them all in one patchwork constructed with breathable mesh and premium pigskin suede.

To visualize this mad Flimby experiment, we brought in illustrator and visual artist Vernon Luna, aka Moonsparkx. Read the interview with Moonsparkx below.

SNS: Hi Vernon, can you tell us a little more about yourself?

V: Hi! My name is Vernon Luna, I’m an illustrator currently drawing from my childhood room in the Philippines. Inspired by design and illustration, I have always loved the fine line between art that can be enjoyed by everyone and art that expresses complete creative freedom. And that is comics: the marriage of illustration, storytelling, and design. As a child, I was never surrounded by visual design and art in general, instead, I was surrounded by design as a necessity, such as banners, illustrations on canned goods, flyers, calendar drawings, brochures, and street signs.

SNS: How did you get into visual design and illustrating?

V: I guess design, illustration and art as an expressive commodity or tool has always struck me, and that might be the reason why I fell in love with the type of work that I do today. As a teenager, I try to make my art reflective of what my childhood self and the future me could feel inspired from. By gravitating towards inspiration from different genres and ages of vintage comics, including my creative juices, I found myself pulling references and styles and using these in my work with the spice of modern advancement and faux print effects.

SNS: Can you talk us through the idea behind this project?

V: First of all, I want to thank the SNS creative team for the navigation and for giving me ultimate creative freedom. Our idea was to visualize the making of the New Balance 770PRT (which I think looks bomb, by the way) as this mad Frankenstein type of project. Because it’s made with scrap material from other shoes, right? So we made these illustrations inspired by vintage movie posters with a light horror-esque theme around the creation of the shoe itself.

SNS: What was going through your mind during the process of making the illustrations?

V: As a creative, I need to get into the right mindset. So I listened to a lot of 1960’s punk records and the self-titled album by October Country on repeat. I’ve always been charmed by how music conveys storytelling, which is why it’s one of my biggest inspirations for my work. Sometimes, I create a playlist that corresponds with what the illustration would sound like if it was an album. And in this case, I made the illustrations feel like a song. In the beginning, it’s just a teaser of what the chorus might sound like. Building the universe or the context. And when we move on to the chorus, I want to make it feel flowy and catchy. And lastly, for the third illustration, I want to make it feel like an outro – something that creates a nice conclusion of the universe that was introduced. The New Balance 770PRT is constructed by this fictional mad doctor pulling different materials from three different shoes. I'm almost certain that this shoe is indicative of the art that I make. The pulling of influences from the classics and turning them into this new electrifying art that reflects modern and fresh contextualized ideas.

I guess I’m the mad doctor after all.