Virtual Mo and RYZ meet up
1) How did you get hooked up with RYZ? My long time friend and creative colleague, Prof. Krupky, turned me on to the RYZ design contest - I believe it was the 3rd round competition. I found the online contest intriguing and decided to participate and see where that could lead (good call, eh?) It came at the perfect time because I had been working on an idea for a sneaker that would allow me to show my support for Presidential Candidate, Barack Obama, but not be ostentatious about it. 2) Can you tell the RYZ community a little bit about your self. How did you get to where you are today? I was raised in Los Angeles. After a long stint in the Air Force as a jet-fighter...
RYZ on the street with Olio United
Thanks to the team at Olio United , we are now selling Winner , Country Club Nouveau , From Sea 2 Sea , Cables , Kicking Television , and the Creep at their shop located at 1028 SE Water Ave in our home town of Portland, Oregon. Last Friday night, Olio held their November Art opening - some photos below. ltg and an Olio shopper check out the shoes the shoes and our designer's art work Coincidentally we work right across the street at 1001 SE Water Ave, so if you're in the neighborhood, give us a ring at 1-877-RYZ-WEAR and we'd love to have you up to our office to see the rest of the 2008 line!
TENDER LOVING EMPIRE PICS
Last night we went to TENDER LOVING EMPIRE to see Santiago Uceda's show. His art will be on display, including his RYZ sneakers "From Sea 2 Sea" until mid November. Stop by and check it out. And for those of you who missed it, here are a few images from the night. Santiago get's to see his sneakers for the first time. Well try them on already!! Owner of TLE, Brianna admires the work. Scott discussing the finer points of art as RYZ founder Rob smiles on. Laura (ltg) and Santiago take a closer look at his sneakers. Photo courtesy of Sam. A close up . . . is it just me or are the eyes in the background monster totally stealing the...
TENDER LOVING EMPIRE, TONIGHT!
Hey all you P-town peeps! Tonight we will be at Tender Loving Empire to support Santiago Uceda for his the launch of his instillation. Come by and check out his RYZ sneakers in PERSON! -ltg
David Gensler Interviewed by ltg
Laura sits down with KDU creator and creative panel member Mr. David Gensler to discuss the debut of their first sneaker fittingly named "THE KDU". ltg: Tell me about designing your shoe, what was the process? David Gensler: I teamed up with my KDU partner Aerosyn Lex Mestrovic. We wanted something organic, removed from the digital clutter. The design was created with ink and paper - no computers used us in the process. ltg: Oh very cool. So because not all of our community members are designers, can you tell them what the KDU is? David Gensler: The KDU is my family, my organization, my friends, my business. It is a private network of highly...
LTG vs. Todd Alan Breland
This afternoon after many trial and errors, Laura/ltg chatted it up with RYZ's latest winner, Todd Alan Breland. Read on . . . ltg: Hi Todd! I swear I'm ready to interview now, I am just debating on if I should throw this egg salad sandwich out the window it was gross. toddalanbreland: NO WAY TOO LATE ltg: nooooooo toddalanbreland: eww. egg salad. you should just go put it in the toilet . that’s where it will be later anyway ha ltg: or in ryzware’ s shoe ew hahaha toddalanbreland: yeah that was pretty gross ok Todd...so where are you from oh funny you should ask me that Laura ltg: ok why don’t you start by telling the RYZ community...
St. Agnes Interviews with ltg
St. Agnes aka the patron saint of virgins aka Jennifer Wannaruche of WorshipWorthy chatted it up with ltg aka RYZ community manager aka Laura who is both sweeter and better looking that BOMBIN' Magazine, today to discuss the launch of her shoe, "Winner". From discovering they are both from middle of nowhere towns in Washington, to religion, to discussing the finer details of great design, they cover it all . . .read on. . . St. Agnes: hey Laura, it's Jennifer. ltg: Hi Jennifer! OK let’s start with you telling the RYZ community a little about yourself, your background in apparel/fashion, your occupation etc. St. Agnes: k. I was born into a family of a...
RYZ Changes
Change - it's a popular word in some camps these days. It's coming to RYZ. We are making a few changes to how things work around here. Here's the rundown. 1. Voting cycles are being shortened to 1 week. This one is pretty simple. This will keep things fresh, create more winners, and put more shoes in the shop. 2. Only some designs will make it to vote. We (RYZ and the Creative Panel) will be filtering all the designs before they go into vote. At least 9 designs will make it, and probably no more than 18. When a cycle ends, all designs in the critique gallery that didn't make it to vote will be pushed back into the designers private design workspace. You...
Suceda Interview
From a young boy growing up in Peru educated in an all boys catholic school, who then moved to the OC in the mid 80's to spend his youth, ultimately ending up in Oregon, the home of RYZ, Suceda, contest #4 winner sat quitely at his Oregon State University office yesterday afternoon and chatted with RYZ community manager Laura aka ltg about his winning design Sea 2 Sea and much more. His winning shoe design is available now for presale. ltg: Hello how’s it going? Ok so lets just start off with some basics, name and hometown please. Suceda: Hi! Santiago Uceda, Corvallis OR. ltg: OH, are you a ducks or a beavers fan? ha! Suceda: haha indeed could lose...
Leon Interview, a hand model, lion tamer and oh so much more!
Laura aka ltg, the community manager at RYZ recently jumped on skype and chatted with Contest #4 winner, Leon. Leon who lives thousands and thousands of miles away, had just dropped the kids off at school and was beginning his day in the capital of a country most widely known in the U.S. for characters like Crocodile Hunter, Nicole Kidman and Captain Kangaroo . . .ok well maybe not the last guy but yeah you get our drift. ltg: Okey dokey I am just getting settled here. So first question . . .what was your design inspiration for "Warhawk" ? leon ryan: I always like any excuse to draw a pinup, and the most iconic pinups were on warplanes in the old days so I thought it...
Interview with Suraj of the Sneaker Room
The guys at BOMBIN' Magazine were kind enough to get us an interview with SURAJ, the owner of Sneaker Room. If you don't know what's up with the Sneaker Room, check their MySpace page . BM:Tell us your name and title. S:Suraj AKA the sneaker ambassador/owner of sneaker room BM: What are your credentials in the sneaker world? S: Battle winner, store owner, first sneaker boutique in jersey city, host of funk master flex sneaker battle, and of course collector most of all BM: Can you name some of the celebrities you've sold sneakers too? S:fat joe, fabolous, funk master flex, wiz from buchanons, did a collab with rebel air for jay z, young jeezy...
BOMBIN' Magazine Interview - Cops Hate Me Sneaker
Hey RYZites, I have a special gem for you today, last night I made a call to BOMBIN’ Magazine and they were generous enough to let me interview them regarding the release of their shoe “Cops Hate Me” . These guys are very funny and can be at times, crass so readers be warned! ltg: Ok enough of the pleasantries lets get down to business, tell us about your background . . .how is it you have the “in” on graffiti culture? Bobby : I wouldn't say we have an "in" in graffiti culture. In fact, if the authorities are reading this...and we know you are you little buggers, BOMBIN' Magazine knows of no graffiti artists. In fact, as a whole, we believe that graffiti...
Ban This - RYZ Banners
We have a bunch of banners now for people to use to promote their own shoes, the site, etc. We'll be sticking these up on our social networking sites, but I figured I'd post them up here also. Some of them are blank, or have extra space, where you can paste your own designs etc. 1. Code: 2. Code: 3. Code: 4. Code: 5. Code: 6. Code: 7. Code: 8. Code: 9. ...
New RYZ Winners!
After three weeks of voting the RYZ nation has spoken! Two designs emerged victorious among the 83 total designs submitted. We want to thank everyone for their great designs and can’t wait to see what you all come up with next. So without further ado, drumroll please . . . .dada dadaaaaaaa. . . RYZ’s contest 3’s winners are Cables and Kicking Television Cables was designed by Flew the Coop . After a few avoided phone calls designer Peter Van Dam finally let curiosity get the better of him and finally answered my call. After relaying the awesome news that his design had won he simply stated, “oh ok cool.” Peter says that he created his design “ because...
Contest 3 Voting Has Ended – Contest 4 Voting Has Started
Wa wa weewa three weeks just flew right by! So as most of you have realized by now, our first online contest has come to a close. We are currently working like lab mice in a maze trying to get everything ready for the announcement of our new RYZ winners. Look for that in your inbox on Monday . . . . . . and with the close of our first online contest, the Critique Gallery has been emptied and all the designs have been thrown into the Voting ring. Have your say and VOTE ! You know, come to think of it, that Critique Gallery is really empty and lonely. Hint hint, get designing people! PS We noticed there was evidence of fraudulent votes going on. As a result, we...
RYZ in the San Francisco Chronicle
We got some press in the SF Chronicle in an article by George Raine about crowdsourcing. We were nicely placed alongside some big brands like Mountain Dew, M&Ms, Threadless, and Converse. Check out the article when you have a chance. -Adam
History Lesson
Woowee so RYZ had our official launch event on June 26.2008. It was held at souk , a super fresh urban space in Portland’s china town. We had great turn out thanks to 52ltd who helped sponsor the event. Over 200 people showed up for drinks and to submit their vote. In the end, Caveman received the most votes for his design, THE CREEP, which is available for purchase . Check out the other finalists and photos from the event here: http://tinyurl.com/5sqf44 later- ltg
Befriend Us?
Mmm ok so I seriously have been sitting here for the last 15 minutes writing the same sentence over and over again. Jeebus introductions are tough!! Cuz I mean it’s all about making that first impression right?? Well balls. I finally just said screw it. I highlighted, deleted, and started a new. This is my fresh stream of conscious you are being exposed to . . .ooohlala! OK so to explain, I basically just wanted to jump up on our blog and write a little ditty about how we, RYZ, are on Facebook and MySpace . Yuuuuuup that’s right folks. So onward ho! Go find us and ask to be our friend because at the moment we have not so many and all we want is to just feel the...
Voting Starts!
We were thrilled with the number of cool designs that were submitted onto the site in the last two weeks. We almost broke 100 entries...yeah! There are a lot of great designs and we are looking forward to watch the contest unfold.
Happy Caveman
Wow! Last night was incredible. Almost 200 of Portland's creative class chose the first winner of a RYZ sneaker design contest. The hero of the night was Jason Ehlers, aka Caveman, whose design, "The Creep," was the crowd favorite and earned Jason $1,000 and $1 royalty on every pair sold on RYZwear.com. Caveman, a graffiti artist turned sneaker designer, spent 2 years in prison for tagging. Now he's happy to apply his creative talents to sneakers, instead of buildings, railcars or bridges. The 5 finalists represented a wide array of styles. In addition to "The Creep," they included a playful storybook sketch, a social commentary on television's invasion of our lives, a...
Hey, welcome to RYZwear.com!
Thanks for stopping by the RYZ Beta Site. We’re still putting the finishing touches on the site so please excuse any bugs you come across (and please report them in the bug forum). At RYZ we’ve set out to create a people’s brand – a community of designers, sneakerheads and anyone that cares enough about art, fashion or sneakers to speak up. Together we’ll create sneakers that are designed and chosen, not by some big, faceless corporation, but by you. Think of RYZ as a stage for designers to showcase their creativity and a forum for people to define what great sneaker design means. In other words, we just make comfortable sneakers – the rest is up to you. While...
