“How would you design Vanity Fair?” Mario Lombardo replied tersely : “Not at all.” White on white—from abstract painters Kasimir Malevich and Robert Ryman to the humble tennis shoe, pale monochrome on top of pale monochrome has always proven a classic style. That’s clear in Mario Lombardo’s poster concept for K-Swiss’ You Gotta Know Your Classics poster campaign, “Blond On Blond,” where the words and colors (or lack thereof) literally deconstruct off the page. It’s a witty homage to the all-white tennis style epitomized by the K-Swiss Classic shoe…..

Non-Format is one of the most acclaimed design collectives working today. A duo made up of Kjell Ekhorn and Jon Forss, since Non-Format began in 2000 they’ve won all number of awards in their field, as well, their clients range from the coolest to the biggest. Non-Format’s contribution to K-Swiss’ You Gotta Know Your Classics campaign, for example, uses oversize type to crushingly illustrate the theme with subtle absurdist humor and a nod to Constructivism.

Everybody loves a Classic ! whether it be an object a person a sentiment or in this case here simply an evergreen Classic trainer. It’s more than stood the test of time, since 1966 in fact and keeps on setting the standard. It’s also a design aesthetic and to expand on that 8 emerging worldwide designers were asked to interpret their own take on a or The Classic in ‘You Gotta Know Your Classics’ and the results are as striking as they are varied !

Norwegian design collective Grandpeople started putting their distinctive mark on everything from fashion and music projects to high art and advertising. Spanning avant-garde electronic-music album covers and stylishly groundbreaking retail posters for basketball kicks to the cover of Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Fight Club, whimsical illustrations for Tokion magazine and edgy rocker t-shirts, Grandpeople clearly can do it all, and with innovative panache.

As prime mover in the design company Value and Service, Sean Murphy serves as a key element in London’s vibrant design scene. K is a prime mover in the design company Value and Service, Sean Murphy serves as a key element in London’s vibrant design scene. Murphy and Value and Service prove versatile in their many innovative projects, putting their mark on everything from books to fashion to branding:

Dutch design team Cobbenhagen Hendriksen were first out the gate to interpret ‘You Gotta Know Your Classics’ in Chapter 1 of this unique initiative and this is how they went about it: “Choosing Helvetica, which is used for the K-Swiss logo, we referred to a Helvetica sticker sheet you can buy in every office-supply shop ….”

Eight forward-looking designers from Berlin to Bergen, Seoul to SoCal recently got inspired to look back and visually re-interpret the history of K-Swiss’ flagship shoe, the Classic – itself a timeless design that has endured since its introduction in 1966 at Wimbledon. In some ways, the K-Swiss Classic is the perfect shoe to project different design points of view onto: its pure white lines are a minimal masterpiece, a tabula rasa with which to project a fresh sensibility.

We love telling a good story here at KSPACE, as much as we love playing around with the idea of all things classic – past, present, future and even future primitive. So we’re delighted at this time to be unrolling a story not previously told, of an iconic brand steeped in ‘the Classic’ and better yet we get to tell it with the help of eight highly credible international designers over the next couple weeks – it goes a little something like this …..