So we are here with my friend Victor Solomon inside his creative studio, where he puts together a wide array of everything from art to commercial products to trophies and celebratory luxury objects you've probably seen on your TV. Maybe you don't know where they came from, but we're going to show you some of that process here: how he creates it, what he comes up with, and how that turns into a really interesting and creative business. Victor, I would just love to get you an introduction to the people of what you do, and how do we even get here? Sure. It's been a long journey, but my name is Victor Solomon.
We're here in my studio in Los Angeles, and I'm excited to show you guys around and see some of the artwork that we create. And, like Lauren mentioned, the trophies that we make for NBA and different sports leagues around the world. The whole journey, frankly, started from sport being a platform that I built my community around when I was growing up in Boston, and the cleanliness of what broad swath of people sports brought together into one place. And that was really inspiring for me to build my community around.
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going to plan. And this is such a ridiculous world that I've carved out. I could have never planned this out. And I think it speaks to tapping into something that is personal, that has a connection to, that you have a passion to, and just building out from there and trusting that it will find itself and it will find its path.
The world, to contextualize in a broad stroke, I've defined it as aspirational objects and thinking about collectible fine art pieces that are still inspired by sport primarily, trophies for the NBA, WNBA, the G League. We just did a series of trophies for the World Cup. We're talking to a few other sport leagues that you may have heard of about their trophies for the future as well. And then that dovetails into luxury-inspired product like jewelry. We have a collaboration with Nike that's ongoing. So we've made some crazy sneakers for them, and we'll continue to do that.
The different brand partners that I think orbit around these sports spaces come to me for a level of credibility and premium aspirational equity that they can build around these sports that they're invested in. Yeah. One of the things that's drawn me to appreciating a lot of what you create is that luxury through line of, there's obviously a passion around the topic of sports that I think a lot of us share, but this idea of, hey, how do we always have something elevated, interesting, that the object is almost magnetic when you're in the room with it? I think you've done an amazing job with it.
I think the best thing we can do while we're here is actually tell some of your story through some of those objects. Pick some of these products, talk about how they were developed, about the challenges around them, the vision you put into them. Let's do it. Let's do it. Oh, oh, oh, oh, fuck. Did that break? Yeah, I think it did. Yeah, one of them did. All right. All right, we made it on. Game over. Oh yeah, I was going to interfere with the process. Hey. All right, so in full MTV fashion, you want to show us the crib, and then we'll end up with one of the trophies to take a look at? Of course. Yeah, this is where the magic happens.
So this wall of the studio is dedicated exclusively to trophies. So this is the G League trophies here. These are the WNBA trophies. And these are all the trophies for the NBA. And there's one piece that I am extremely proud of. This is the Michael Jordan NBA MVP trophy. So this is the casting here. All of these different components live in various states of fabrication. This is one that we're actually getting ready to get out the door. So the casting is here. The base is here. There'll be some last-mile assembly that goes into these things before they go out the door. But I think this is one of the pieces that I'm most proud of of our collection.
So how does something like this come together from idea to reality? Yeah, I assume it's a complicated process. We obviously have all kinds of components and assembly here. Where do you even start? It is a daunting, extremely daunting assignment to get. And I think really all of this comes down to a guy at the NBA called Christopher Arena. He's in charge of what they call their Encore brand partnerships. Trophies is his purview internally. So he and I have a great creative collaborative relationship. And when we were mapping out the breadth of the trophy program for the NBA, we were looking at each concept, trying to find a unique story that would be relevant for each.
And I think one of the big innovations that we brought to our trophy program when we took it over was each trophy is named after a player from the fraternity of the history of the NBA. So it is a homage to them and a tribute to pulling those legacies forward in the process. So as we were mapping things out, the first order of business was who deserves the namesake honor of being connected to these. That very quickly broke down to MJ being named as the MVP. Pretty logical.
This was a particularly fun experience because we got to work with MJ, his team, and Mark Smith on the design concept. And really, we start with a very blank piece of paper. I think what makes trophies an interesting creative challenge is that there is no rule book for what it can or cannot be. As I say, this is radically different than some of the more sculptural. Yeah, yeah. I guess you just got the, some look more like chandeliers. Some represent, you have a wide array of iconography to work with. Totally. And it's a really fun and intimidating challenge because you can invent whatever visual language is relevant for that.
So what MJ, Mark and his team, and we were figuring out when we were developing this piece in particular, was telling the story of the evolution of a player from the rawness of starting out and elevating up and becoming more refined as you moved up through the form. Now, what was super interesting is Mike didn't want his likeness to be a part of the trophy at all, which was a little surprising to me, but he didn't want it to overshadow the recipient, which I thought was really generous of him. But the evolution of how refined the form comes when they get all the way up to this 23-faceted ball, which is a reference I'm sure I don't need to explain.
It just goes to show all the detail, the thought, and it goes into every portion of this. Absolutely. And I think that's what makes trophies a really interesting medium to explore sculpture with, frankly, is because part of the responsibility is, more so than making a shiny thing, trying to tell a meaningful story that is worthy of these athletes locking themselves in a gym since they're 10 years old in pursuit of. So we'll always bake in these referential narrative Easter eggs: 23 facets on the ball. The whole piece is 23.6 inches tall, which speaks to his number and his championships. There's five sides on the base for his MVPs.
I love all this. All these little Easter eggs are super important to show the consideration and intentionality that goes into these designs of these forms because they're meant to be such specific honors. Amazing. And so when you got set down, you came up with the concept, how does that go tactically? Are you sketching it, taking it into 3D, taking it in? How do you think
interesting medium to explore sculpture with, frankly, is because part of the responsibility is more so than making a shiny thing, is trying to tell a meaningful story that is worthy of these athletes locking themselves in a gym since they're 10 years old in pursuit of. So we'll always bake in these referential narrative Easter eggs: 23 facets on the ball. The whole piece is 23.6 inches tall, which speaks to his number and his championships. There's five sides on the base for his MVPs. I love all this. All these little Easter eggs are super important to show the consideration and intentionality that goes into these designs of these forms because they're meant to be such specific honors. Amazing. And so when you got sat down, you came up with the concept, how does that go tactically? Are you sketching it, taking it into 3D, taking it in? How do you think about actually production and fabrication? It starts in a very lo-fi way with a piece of paper and a pencil. And we'll just start jamming on stuff. Christopher at the NBA and I, we have a great collaborative relationship. So I'll sketch out some stuff. We might have some, if we have a player that we're modeling something after specifically, we'll go back through the milestones, the relevant points of interest or points of narrative to make sure it's incorporated here somehow. So we'll have little scratch sessions going back and forth with rough ideas. That rough idea will get formalized slightly into more of a refined illustration that will go to a larger group to get buy-in on a creative approach. Once that group feels comfortable with the next phase of the process, we'll go into a full 3D model where we'll build out everything to spec, to detail. In certain instances, we'll actually do a 3D print to test-drive it in hand to make sure that it's going to feel satisfying and appropriate enough. And then that will get broken down to its respective components for the bronze foundry gets this piece, the base manufacturer gets that piece, the CNC metal team gets this piece. So it gets divvied up into our various production mercenaries. And then everything comes together here. And I personally touch everything as we take it to the last mile before it goes to the player.
And so I think the big question is, how does one even learn all this? You mentioned, okay, we're sketching, we're 3D modeling, we've got CNC machines. Is this a body of work you just accumulated over time during the process? Or how do you do it?
I totally faked my way through the initial part of the process, as I'm sure everyone has to do at some point in their careers. But I was making art around the sport, the league was interested in working together, I had the thought around trophies, but I did not have a ton of experience making them. We were building the plane as it was flying. And I was figuring out how to source partners, how to understand their needs and their processes earlier in our process, so we could anticipate the casting would be optimized if we designed it in this particular way. So it was a really dynamic and shotgun evolution as we were solving these problems, finding our partners, and making a set of trophies for one of the biggest sports leagues in the world. So there were a very stressful few years while we were navigating all of that stuff. But I think that actually crystallized, again, the intentionality of what it is that we're building, because there is nothing that is arbitrary in the process, because every detail is so considered. And how we built the universe around that production, I think was really special. I love it. And so what does the time look like, now that you have a little more dialed in, you want to go from concept to the reality of you putting this together? What does that length look like? Now, this is a big problem, because a lot of people understand that trophies are the representative of getting to the mountaintop in a respective league. And trophies represent the end of that journey. Now, personally, this is my book. So I think that needs to be extremely considered and thoughtful and technically executed with the requisite time for that development process. A lot of times they don't know what needs to go into that. So they'll say, oh, shit, our championship is next week, and we forgot to get a trophy. Do you have a catalog that I can look at?
Can you start whittling right now? And there are partners that can serve that thing. I think what we are priding ourselves on with the house that we're building here is the level of attention and the level of narrative and thoughtfulness that goes into these things. So in a perfect world, I have three to six months to develop something, to fine-tune our production process and get it into the world. That's still pretty fast. That's pretty fast. It's not like you're making, you can airship, you can do that. Totally.
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So this was actually the introduction, the first time I saw any of your work before we knew each other. I saw these and it was kind of, yeah, obviously they're, it's unique. It's something to take in. You're applying your own art and craft to something that people understand from a form factor. How did you get started in this? And how did this end up going into the trophy work you do now?
So when I was a kid growing up in Boston, the basketball court was the place that I found my community and getting everyone to come together. And that just always stuck with me as a spiritual place, as a community-building platform. And it was a really important part of my life as I grew up. So later I left Boston, I went to San Francisco, I went to film school, and I was pursuing that journey. And I was getting really frustrated at how much resources and people you needed to mobilize to get an idea out of your head. San Francisco had this long legacy of stained glass artists that had been really disruptive in the 60s that had just opened shops and were teaching lessons. So I wandered in one day just looking for a hobby to learn, to keep myself occupied while I was trying to get a film project made. And the first piece I made was a basketball backboard to celebrate the sport that was important for me throughout my life. And just threw it on my social and it went viral. A gallery reached out. We went to show some pieces at Art Basel a few months later, had a show in New York. And that was that show. While that show was up in New York, a couple of people from the NBA walked by and got in touch with me. So how old were you when that all happened, when you put that first out?
Yeah, this is going back to 2016. San Francisco had this long legacy of stained glass artists that had been really disruptive in the 60s, that had just opened shops and were teaching lessons. So I wandered in one day just looking for a hobby to learn, to keep myself occupied while I was trying to get a film project made. And the first piece I made was a basketball backboard to celebrate the sport that was important for me throughout my life. And I just threw it on my social, and it went viral. The gallery reached out. We went to show some pieces at Art Basel a few months later, had a show in New York. And that was that show.
While that show was up in New York, a couple of people from the NBA walked by and got in touch with me. So how old were you when that all happened, when you put that first out? Yeah, this is going back to 2016. So this is not that long ago, but that was the naive stumbling into making a world out of this. Now, the thesis, the premise behind all this stuff is, the backboard sporting equipment is essentially utilitarian, that's made to get knocked around. But it can be the vessel with which you change your entire life and become wealthy and powerful in a way that these luxury materials appeal to.
In an odd way, I stumbled into this in a very naive idea to just keep myself busy. But there was a bigger story that was there to be revealed that tapped into people. And we've had some funny collectors of these pieces, and it set the table for some more partnerships in the future. And you actually assemble and make some of these here, right? Totally. Yeah, one of the joys, in lieu of what this has unlocked for working with leagues and working with brands and things like that, is that I still get to get my hands dirty with making art. So I try to keep that as a core of the studio in the midst of everything else. So here's me getting cooked by my guys in horse.
We play every day. I have not won a single game, and they're lapping me like crazy. All right. So if you've ever wondered who has the hardest Zoom setup in the game, I think we definitely take the cake here. So we've talked about art. We've talked about the trophies. But you've also just made a wide variety of products too. And some of the ones I think that we initially started talking about was in jewelry. So I'd love to get a little breakdown of that process and the interesting things you've made. Yeah. Actually, as you mentioned, I just realized that you were the one that introduced me to my main jewelry partner. Yeah. We've been having a lot of fun.
We make jewelry for the NBA. So all of the all-star selections receive a ring that we produce. We've produced independently a jewelry collection that's gone out and been available. And as part of my Nike collection that we released earlier this year, we did a jewelry accessory collection that came with it. I've worn the chain in a few of these videos. People have seen it. Yeah, let's take a look. Yeah, yeah, let's do it. So those are the stitches of a football. This is what we call the spiral ring. My fingers are not athlete-sized. Yeah.
So this here, for a little quick close-up, for my collection with Nike, these are the swoosh made into links to be worn as a bracelet or necklace. But swoosh links, this is probably one of my proudest contributions to jewelry as a medium. Yeah, I love it. That's a, look, the logo was built for it. Totally. It's funny. Nike's a really funny partner to work with, and I'm really proud of our partnership. But it is a horrible logo to work with, respectfully. Oh, that's so funny. Well, look at that. I mean, this too, we got the whole, oh, yo, this is just the black diamonds going to the light. You're out here doing God's vertical stuff.
And similarly, here's a swoosh pendant that plays with that same gradient concept. That's the one they've seen. Oh, I have the standard one, not the gradient one. Yeah, no, this has been shown on video. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's been on YouTube. This particular version is unreleased, so that's a rare look. A lot of ones. And yeah, so what does the process look like when you're coming up with those ideas? Obviously, you're working a lot with the actual photography. How's that design process? So working with Nike in particular is probably one of the coolest honors of my career, I think.
There's a guy up there called Tim Day that I've been close with for a long time, and he's been super supportive throughout my journey, just watching as we've done basketball stuff and started to expand into other sports. About a year and a half ago, he just hit me, and he was just like, look, it's time. And what's your schedule like next week? He came down with this guy, Mark, and a bunch of other people, and they basically walked into my studio and dumped a bag of sneakers on the floor with a bunch of different materials and techniques and things I'd never seen before. And they were like, listen, we love what you're doing.
We're trying to tell this luxury and sports story. What do you want to do? And they gave me carte blanche. I've never experienced the openness that they had to me as a collaborator. And I'm not a super established sneaker guy, so they gave me a lot of generosity that I was really honored for. And then it got even scarier when we started moving the process forward, and they were like, okay, we'd like you to focus on, listen to this lineup, Air Force One, Air Max 90, and the Foamposite, three of their most iconic silhouettes. And it was, again, a very scary and daunting challenge, but super exciting to go on the journey with those guys.
And we just tried to take concept around what I've been doing with the art and with the trophies and with everything to say utilitarian equipment, luxury materials, maybe trying to challenge some conventions, and jammed it all into my brain and turned it into these pieces. So this is the Air Max 90. This was released at All-Star Weekend earlier this year. We just released a black colorway for Summer League in Las Vegas. It's a lace that you wouldn't normally see on a man's shoe. They let me replace the laces with gold chains, which is like, what? Why would they let me do that? But they totally did. Swarovski crystals on the swoosh.
So we're tying back into some of the artwork stuff that we'd done. And really had a lot of fun with the inspiration for this, and then carried the codes that we'd developed across the Air Force One and the Foamposite, which I think ultimately ended up being most sought after. The inlay on this too. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So this paisley pattern that we turned into a lace and put on some of the most iconic silhouettes that Nike has. I do like when you mentioned when they sat down, it's like, hey, we have these processes. We have these materials. It's like, this is the toolkit to play with. This is an interesting way to think about it.
And so how much of that process was you coming up with just an idea from the start versus, okay, I'm inspired by these materials and these things I have an opportunity for. Here's how I'd use them. Yeah. I mean, frankly, I didn't have the vocabulary or experience even to think about what I couldn't do, which was a nice bit of freedom. And that's also a little line that I stole from Orson Welles when he was going back to making Citizen Kane. He just didn't know it was naive for him to think about how he was approaching some of these ideas. So coming to an experience and thinking of that as a power rather than a vulnerability, I think, was part of it.
Second part of it was just having the courage instilled into me by Tim Day at Nike, by Mark on the design team, by a guy called Jordan on the design team. And they were just like, pitch us the craziest shit you can think of. We've probably already done something crazy because they pride themselves on pushing the envelope. And I think I was actually able to surprise them even still. But they had the balls to explore it, and they had the balls to figure it out. And really, my job was easy, just coming up with the idea and sketching it out. They had the hard job to figure out how to make it and produce it. Well, I also feel like the reception has been great.
You can see it online. You can see things going for a premium and people talking about it. I think there's something to do about knowing the demographic and knowing, hey, you have this particular lens on culture and people that want to work hard, want to celebrate their wins, and being able to express that through all these different mediums. Totally. And they were just, pitch us the craziest shit you can think of. We've probably already done something crazy because they pride themselves on pushing the envelope. And I think I was actually able to surprise them even still. But they had the balls to explore it, and they had the balls to figure it out.
And really, my job was easy, just coming up with the idea and sketching it out. They had the hard job to figure out how to make it and produce it. Well, I also feel the reception has been great. You can see it online. You can see things going for a premium and people talking about it. I think there's something to do about knowing the demographic and knowing, hey, you have this particular lens on culture and people that want to work hard, want to celebrate their wins, and being able to express that through all these different mediums. Totally. I think very unique. Totally. So it's something that I'm extremely proud of.
The group over there has been happy with how things are going. We have a lot more stuff planned in the next 18 months to two years. And I'm really excited to keep building with those guys. Amazing. To end this section, though, what's one thing that you've wanted to do? All right, I'd really love to do extra while, but haven't been able to figure out the technology or the... One of the things that I'm really trying to dedicate some time to, amidst all the other projects that are keeping us busy, is making time to challenge ourselves in exactly these directions. So right now we are developing a fragrance, which is an area that I've been super curious about. A hard one.
Really hard one. But a really fun thing to think about. And also, a really fun set of guardrails to work within in prioritizing an organic and non-toxic approach. Something maybe that could be unisex. Thinking about packaging is really fun. The ultimate arena for that is the fragrance package. But one of the other things that we're developing in-house right now, and I consider this to be our atelier objects, these are our, when we're done with our work, we get to work on these side projects that are just going to be for us. And at least there's some time for that. So there, well, there is. Make the time.
We make the time because that's actually a fun area for us to explore, things that we're not getting tapped for currently but are things that we're excited about. So one of those. It's an important note, too, to call out. It's like you're doing all these things, creating all this, but people have to know that you'll work inside the universe to even approach you for the work. I think that's something people ignore in the creative practice. Everyone's like, oh, I'd really love to do a fragrance. But if people don't see you actively working on those things or it doesn't come across on social or in conversation, they may not even know to ask.
And you've done a great job on that. You've always been releasing some of your own items, and you can see the constant flow of experiments, and it's inspiring. And I think if there's a lesson that I can impart with any creative that's trying to build their own world, it's you could make the snazziest pitch deck in the world. No one's going to give you your first opportunity with a budget.
So the biggest successes in my life have been bootstrapping an idea, putting it out into the world, however fucked up it might be, and however version one it might be, but to trigger something externally to say, oh, he's interested in this, or he has the capability to at least start moving in this direction. It requires a little courageousness and requires a little risk, but I think it will unlock, ultimately, the level you want to get to. It's just start making the thing you want to be making. You have to realize a lot of brand people, you deal with more creative ones than probably I deal with, but they don't know what they want. They need to see it.
And I remember I put out some clothing. I had a hat that did not sell particularly well to the public, but I had multiple brands be like, I want that exact thing. And you're like, okay, they just needed to see what they wanted. A hundred percent. And I think you put it in a much gentler way than I would put it, but a lot of times, yeah. But a lot of times, to your point, these clients are reacting to what you're proofing. So I think of these experiments that we're embarking on as proof of concepts to say, these are things that we're interested and curious in. We may not be getting those looks because people don't think of them in those contexts.
But one of the things I'm most excited about is that we're making a watch. Oh, yeah. And that's an area that I'm particularly passionate about and like to collect in. And I see there being an opportunity to tell a visual story that I don't see. But just out of the sickness of my own curiosity, I want to go through the process of making one and have it on my wrist, that that was my design. Sickness of your own curiosity is a great way to put it. I also am a victim of this illness. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because, and I'm sure that you can relate to this, and I bet a lot of your viewers can, when you figure out the protocol to get something done, it ports into any industry you can imagine. So if you have the experience and confidence to have gone from a blank piece of paper to a finished thing, whatever that is, whether it's software or hardware or product or whatever, you can replicate that across anything. So the scary part is that can unlock a lot of confidence to go, I've never even thought about designing a watch. Let's fucking go. Because I know the moves that I need to make, and I know how to be receptive to what I need to learn along the way. Absolutely.
And you'll see that even when we were talking earlier, I learned an awful lot about diamonds and jewelry. And while it never manifested in the full brand, it's manifested on a dozen projects where you're like, oh, this is how this happens, and we can use this link, or this is what this costs. And all of that adds up to the body of work. Totally. So I'd like to end here, you also work with a lot of brands. One of my favorites is the Bose ear, I don't know what the exact term for the product is, but the earbuds that they did, they were quite popular. Was that All-Star Weekend, or was that one of the other?
And so I'd just love to look at, I think Michelob was the most recent or one of the biggest profile ones you did for World Cup. Michelob Ultra is a great partner of mine. We just did these trophies here for the World Cup, which essentially was the MVP for every match of the entire tournament. So Messi got a couple, Mbappe got a couple. It was so cool to see guys on this level be excited about receiving something to celebrate the honor of that moment. So that was a great project that we just got on. That's what I wanted to dive in a bit with, because I think as people start to look at, okay, you were bridging this idea of there's commerce, there's brands.
You still want people to get excited about receiving the object, but it's also a brand experience. We'd love to dive into that project. A couple minutes on that for me. Michelob Ultra has been a great partner. It's a guy called Daniel Fochi and Ricardo over there that have been super supportive of me. They reached out to me a few years ago to do these championship bottles to celebrate. Basically, whenever a team wins the NBA championship, they'll have these bottles waiting in the locker room for them to celebrate and spray on each other. And we did that a few years ago for the Thunder. They liked the experience of collaborating, and I thought they were fun to work with.
And they approached me with this opportunity for the World Cup and creating these trophies. Yeah, let me take it up. So the superior player of the match, or essentially the MVP of every match of the World Cup, is actually a property that the AB organization has owned forever. So it used to be Budweiser. Michelob Ultra did it last year for Club World Cup. It's a big deal for those brands to be doing. Massive deal. And Club World Cup is one thing, but proper World Cup was a whole different stratosphere.
So Daniel and Ricardo reached out to me to come up with a concept for this design, and we had a lot of fun and went through a million iterations because the stage was so big. But like we talked about before, storytelling is always super important for us. So we baked in all these little Easter eggs into this 26-degree sloped face for the 2026 Games, anodized aluminum to speak to a material that's relevant to their brand. Yeah, let me take it up. So the superior player of the match, or essentially the MVP of every match of the World Cup, is actually a property that the AB organization has owned forever.
So it used to be Budweiser. Michelob Ultra did it last year for Club World Cup. It's a big deal for those brands to be doing. Massive deal. And Club World Cup is one thing, but proper World Cup was a whole different stratosphere. So Daniel and Ricardo reached out to me to come up with a concept for this design, and we had a lot of fun and went through a million iterations because the stage was so big. But we talked about before, storytelling is always super important for us. So we baked in all these little Easter eggs into this 26-degree sloped face for the 2026 Games, anodized aluminum to speak to a material that's relevant to their brand.
And then also the colors that are relevant for both FIFA and Michelob Ultra that also represent the three layers of Canada, the U.S., and Mexico as the host nation. And 104 facets on the red ribbon for each of the matches in the World Cup. I know Laura needed that. Yeah. I'm going to start going into it. I'm just kidding. I can't even start. Yeah. 16 inches tall for each of the host cities. So we really went in on what a big stage this was going to be. And one of the proudest achievements, working with those guys to realize this moment. And even crazier to see, I was a casual soccer fan, football fan, going into it. I had no idea the... Rabid fervor.
Crazy, crazy reaction that the World Cup was going to get. And these became such a moment because it became a tradition from early group stage games. One player would get this after each game. And it started to build anticipation. And we built some more lore around the silhouette and the honor than arguably had existed in the past. And we were starting to get... Michelob Ultra did a really smart thing. And they would partner with someone relevant regionally to give the award. So Maluma gave Bessie one of the awards. All the time to get. It's the complete world being built in all these scenarios. Totally.
But I say that to say, when Michelob Ultra wisely had these influential people handing off the awards to the players, that became such a moment that people were AI-ing as if they were the ones that were handing Messi the trophy because they wanted to create that moment for themselves. So, very cool thing to be a part of. And set the table for 2030. So, we'll be back. Let's go. I want to end up with, I think there's a lot of people watching this channel that are working in roles that are doing these things. They're saying, hey, we're doing this sponsorship or working with these artists. There's also people that are saying, all right, I have a creative practice.
On my journey, whether it's 10 years from now or 20 years from now, I want to get to a place like where you are. Any advice or thoughts or little tips or tricks from along the way worth parting to be? Number one, if my dumbass can figure something out, you can too. So have the confidence to do that. But I think that a few lessons I think are important that I've learned along the way that could potentially be valuable are: be comfortable with going narrow and deep.
I think that we are in a world where there is so much access and so much opportunity through some of these AI tools that are available to us, through the access to some of these overseas factories that are available to everyone, that coming up with the niche is almost as valuable as the execution of it. So, finding a lane that you can completely own. It's never as narrow as you think. If you had told someone maybe 15 years ago, oh, I'll be doing, it's only sports-related, it's huge, right? The world of this is so massive. Yeah, totally.
But I think that I was able to organically maybe identify an opportunity in trophies that was underrepresented and have been heads down in trying to own that category, which I think is proving itself to be the opportunity for me. All of the other things that orbit around it, from brand partnerships to creative, other things like that, will fall into place. When it comes from that one, okay, being the guy for trophies and having the studio for that has allowed this world to build around it.
And I think when you can find what your domain expertise is that is unique to anyone, or at least a less crowded field, I think that it can be a little scary because you're not sure if it's going to pan out. But that is the place to put all your chips on. So, you see a lot of people that are short-sighted and maybe try to copy what is in the moment of doing some DTC thing or trying to do some content thing. Oren has that covered. Don't even bother. He's got it locked down. Try to find the thing that not a lot of people are interested in and just dig the deepest into it. And I think you will be surprised at what you find on the other end of it. Let's go. I love the advice.
Thank you so much for showing us around the world. Thanks for coming through. And I see there being an opportunity to tell a visual story that I don't see. But just out of the sickness of my own curiosity, I just want to go through the process of making one and have it on my wrist that that was my design. Sickness of your own curiosity is a great way to put it. I also am a victim of this illness. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because, and I'm sure that you can relate to this, and I bet a lot of your viewers can, is like when you figure out the protocol to get something done, it ports into any industry you can imagine.
So if you have the experience and confidence to have gone from a blank piece of paper to a finished thing, whatever that is, whether it's software or hardware or product or whatever, you can replicate that across anything. So the scary part is that can unlock a lot of confidence to go, I've never even thought about designing a watch. Let's fucking go. Because I know the moves that I basically need to make, and I know how to be receptive to what I need to learn along the way. Absolutely. And like, I mean, you'll see that even when we were talking earlier, like I learned an awful lot about diamonds and jewelry.
And while I never manifested in the full brand, it's manifested on a dozen projects where you're like, oh, this is how this happens, and we can use this link, or this is what this costs. And all of that kind of adds up to the body of work. Totally. So I'd like to end with here, you also work with a lot of brands. One of my favorites is the Bose ear, I don't know what the exact term for the product is, but like the earbuds that they did, they were quite popular. Was that All-Star Weekend, or was that one of the other? And so I just love to look at, I think Michelob was the most recent or one of the biggest profile ones you did for World Cup.
Michelob Ultra is a great partner of mine. We just did these trophies here for the World Cup, which is essentially was the MVP for every match of the entire tournament. So Messi got a couple, Mbappe got a couple. It was so cool to see, you know, guys on this level be excited about receiving something to celebrate the honor of that moment. So that was a great project that we just got on. That's what I wanted to dive in a bit with, because I think as people start to look at, okay, you were bridging this idea of like there's commerce, there's brands. You still want people to get excited about receiving the object, but it's also a brand experience.
You know, we'd love to kind of dive into that project. Sure. A couple minutes on that for me. Michelob Ultra has been a great partner. It's a guy called Daniel Fochi and Ricardo over there that have been super supportive of me. They reached out to me a few years ago to do these championship bottles to celebrate. Basically, whenever a team wins the NBA championship, they'll have these bottles waiting in the locker room for them to celebrate and spray on each other. And we did that a few years ago for the Thunder. They liked the experience of collaborating, and I thought they were fun to work with.
And they approached me with this opportunity for the World Cup and creating these trophies. Yeah, let me take it up. So the superior player of the match, or essentially the MVP of every match of the World Cup, is actually a property that the AB organization has owned forever. So it used to be Budweiser. Michelob Ultra did it last year for Club World Cup. It's a big deal for those brands to be doing. Massive deal. And, you know, Club World Cup is one thing, but proper World Cup was a whole different stratosphere.
So Daniel and Ricardo reached out to me to come up with a concept for this design, and we had a lot of fun and went through a million iterations because the stage was so big. But like we talked about before, storytelling is always super important for us. So we baked in all these little Easter eggs into this 26-degree sloped face for the 2026 Games, anodized aluminum to speak to a material that's relevant to their brand. And then also kind of the colors that are relevant for both FIFA and Michelob Ultra that also represent, you know, the three layers of Canada, the U.S., and Mexico as the host nation.
And 104 facets on the red ribbon for each of the matches in the World Cup. I know Laura needed that. Yeah. I'm going to start going into it. I'm just kidding. I can't even start. Yeah. 16 inches tall for each of the host cities. So we really went in on what a big stage this was going to be. And one of the proudest achievements working with those guys to realize this moment. And even crazier to see, you know, I was a casual soccer fan, football fan going into it. I had no idea the... Rabid fervor. Crazy, crazy reaction that the World Cup was going to get. And these became such a moment because it became a tradition from early, from group stage games.
One player would get this after each game. And it started to build anticipation. And we kind of built some more lore around the silhouette and the honor than arguably had existed in the past. And we were starting to get... Michelob Ultra did a really smart thing. And they would partner with, like, someone relevant regionally to give the award to. So, like, Maluma gave Bessie one of the awards. All the time to get. It's the complete world being built in all these scenarios. Totally. But I say that to say when Michelob Ultra sort of wisely had these sort of influential people handing off the awards to the players,
that became such a moment that people were AI-ing as if they were the ones that were handing Messi the trophy because they wanted to create that moment for themselves. So, very cool thing to be a part of. And set the table for 2030. So, we'll be back. Let's go. I want to end up with, you know, I think there's a lot of people watching this channel that are, you know, they're working in roles that are doing these kind of things. They're saying, hey, we're doing this sponsorship or working with these artists. There's also people that are saying, all right, I have a creative practice.
You know, on my journey, whether it's 10 years from now or 20 years from now, I want to kind of get to a place like where you are. Any advice or thoughts or little tips or tricks from along the way worth parting to be? Number one, if my dumbass can figure something out, you can too. So, have the confidence to do that. But I think that a few lessons I think that are important that I've learned along the way that could potentially be valuable is be comfortable with going narrow and deep. I think that, you know, we are in a world where there is so much access and so much opportunity through some of these AI tools that are available to us,
through the access to some of these overseas factories that are available to everyone, that coming up with the niche is almost as valuable as the execution of it. So, finding a lane that you can completely own. It's never as narrow as you think. You had told someone maybe 15 years ago, oh, I'll be doing, you know, it's only sports related. It's huge, right? The world of this is so massive. Yeah, totally. But I think that, you know, I was able to organically maybe identify an opportunity in trophies that was underrepresented and have been, you know, heads down in trying to own that category, which I think is proving itself to be the opportunity for me.
All of the other things that orbit around it, from brand partnerships to creative, other things like that, will fall into place. When it comes from that one, okay, like being the guy for trophies and having the studio for that has allowed this world to build around it. And I think when you can find what your domain expertise is that is unique to anyone or at least a less crowded field, I think that is, it can be a little scary because you're not sure if it's going to pan out. But that is the place to put all your chips on.
So, you know, you see a lot of people that are short-sighted and maybe try to copy what is in the moment of doing some DTC thing or trying to do some content thing. Oren has that covered. Don't even bother. He's got it locked down. Try to find the thing that not a lot of people are interested in and just dig the deepest into it. And I think you will be surprised at what you find on the other end of it. Let's go. I love the advice. Thank you so much for showing us around the world. Thanks for coming through.