"One of my favorite projects of the year. Feels like the future of editorial. It's not a translation, but a reinvention that stays true to the medium." —juror Michael Lebowitz

"A clean blend of interface and imagery that spotlights the content." —juror Britt Miura

Overview: Nike entered the skateboarding arena in 2002 with skate shoes, during the same year it introduced a Web audience to its new brand. Following in the footsteps of the second, this third incarnation of the popular Nike site is packed with fresh and relevant content, an appropriately reactive navigation, an urban aesthetic, easy to access video elements and a customizable design and CMS that enable the in-house team at Nike can to do more than add new content.

• Colors, backgrounds, and type can be switched up as often as new sneakers drop.
• A satellite image mashup shows every Nike skate store at its exact latitude and longitude.

Comments by Tim Barber:
How did your relationship with the client evolve over the course of the project? "The guys at Nike Skateboarding are amazing. Working with them means that you’re always looking ahead and charging up the next hill. Because the creative and technical challenges are changing as they grow, during our six year relationship we’ve set an entirely new online strategy every two years.

"Six years ago, when we started working with them, Nike Skateboarding hadn't released a product. There were no guarantees and the skateboarding community still had to size them up. Now they've earned the respect of the industry and we wanted to offer skaters more than before—a look on the inside.

"Skateboarding is all about action and motion. We built the new site in Flash for its great interactivity but designed and built it for speed—to be responsive and fast-rendering like HTML. The focus is mostly on great content but we also wanted the site to be useful for both skaters and Nike. The visual language of the old site is still there; what's new is an experience that is always fresh and packed with the latest everything: news, kicks and team happenings."