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Adult Swim Creatives Talk Etnies Collaboration

Last night, etnies and Adult Swim threw a launch party to announce a collaborative project between the two brands. Complex’s Lifestyle Editor Bradley Carbone got a chance to catch up with the group responsible for designing the shoes and putting it together: Adult Swim Creative Director Jake Escobedo, Senior Designer Brandon Lively, and etnies Brand Marketing Manager Eladio Correa.

Check out an exclusive interview with the trio below to learn more about the sneakers, Adult Swim’s creative process, and an upcoming special called The Return of Freaknik that stars Lil’ Wayne, T-Pain and David Banner .

Adult Swim Creative Director Jake Escobedo, left, and Senior Designer Brandon Lively

Complex: Can you guys bring us up to speed on why this relationship exists, and how this collaboration came to be?

EC: About two years ago, one of Adult Swim’s representatives, Amanda, came to the Pool Tradeshow, where we were showing etnies+. She was a fan of the brand, and we both kind of felt that we shared a similar consumer to a degree, so we decided that we would work together on a project. This is the first of hopefully several collaborations to come. The shoe is launching in the next few weeks, through October.

Complex: I see that you decided to use one of the Mooninite characters on the more limited of your shoe offerings. I seem to remember him being quite an icon for the brand. What was that, two years ago?

JE: [Laughs.] What are you talking about?

Complex: Boston?

JE: [Laughs.] Oh man…. We’ve always sort of favored the Mooninite characters as icons. We love the design of them, so it was sort of a no-brainer to put them on a shoe. We just had to wait a while for that whole thing to blow over. But yeah. [Laughs.] We like them as the face of Adult Swim.

Complex: Did you start Adult Swim?

JE: I was working at Cartoon Network before Adult Swim, when Space Ghost Coast to Coast was airing late nights but there was no real animation block built around it. So in 2002 or 2003, they decided to put it on with a full block structured around Space Ghost and I sort of gravitated towards that. I started doing a lot of the design work for the show, and I went over to Mike Lazzo and was like, “You need me.” And it worked out.

BL: Jake was doing all the stuff by himself, and then we became friends in 2003, and he shortly pulled me over to help out. And we just kept doing it and getting bigger.

JE: So we kind of tag teamed on designing these shoes.

Complex: Who is Mike Lazzo, and how does he influence the overall feel of the program block?

JE: Most of the direction comes from Mike Lazzo. He’s the creative genius behind all of it. He started it in the mailroom when Ted Turner started up CNN and Cartoon Network, and essentially cut Space Ghost together in a broom closet. He has overseen every piece of animation and really constructed this interesting collective of people to make all of the shows. The crew didn’t necessarily have a background in animation or comedy to start out, but everyone has been able to bring something completely different to the table.

Complex: How are new shows decided on? Are you pitched?

JE: For a while we were taking pitches, but it became overwhelming. We started getting so many great ideas from within the community that we didn’t need to go outside our creative group. Occasionally a pitch comes through that raises eyebrows and it works, but most of the content is generated in-house.

Complex: But from time to time, you have guest artists. You worked with REAS on the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie?

JE: We have good relationships with a lot of those types of artists, and Todd James is one of our favorites. Also Devon Flynn. Those two worked together on that movie opening. We’ve also worked with Gary Panter a lot in the past…

BL: And Ronnie Land as well.

JE: Gary Panter by far is one of our all time guys.

Complex: You bring them in for special projects?

JE: With Aqua Teen Hunger Force, the show creators were actually the ones who came with the idea of using Todd James and Devon Flynn on the open, but for the movie poster, we wound up reaching out to the fantasy artist Boris Vallejo. He did the Meatloaf album cover.

BL: And all the National Lampoon stuff as well.

Complex: The poster is amazing.

JE: Yeah. And when I was searching for ideas, I saw that album cover and I was like “Wow that would be so amazing.” So luckily the creators [of the show] were open-minded enough to do that. We told the artist, “We want ninjas, volcanos…we want scantily clad women on motorbikes! And then you know, include the main characters, of course.” They came back to us with this drawing and we were completely blown away. We were like, “Holy shit, this is amazing!” We made the type really small just because the art was so great.

BL: It’s actually a husband and wife team. Julie Bell and Boris Vallejo.

Complex: That’s what they do?

BL: Yeah, they’re full on fantasy artists.

JE: I was actually afraid to approach them, because I didn’t want them to think that I was making fun of their art. I wanted them to take this project really seriously. So I was like, “Are you familiar with Aqua Teen Hunger Force? It’s this show about a wad of meat…” And I’m waiting and there was a pause on the line, and then they were like, “Oh yeah, we’re totally into it.” And it worked out really well.

Complex: So do you have that painting in your office?

JE: No, that would have cost a lot.

Complex: But that painting exists somewhere?

BL: Yeah, it does. We should have bought it, but you know, didn’t really have the budget.

Click “NEXT” to see pictures of the shoes and hear about the new cartoon starring T-Pain, Lil Wayne, and David Banner.