“No Finish Line,” a Design Vision for the Next 50 Years

“It’s been said that the best way to predict the future is to create it. At Nike, we wholeheartedly agree. For over 50 years, we’ve endeavored to create a better future for athletes. This compels us forward, always. When we say, ‘There is no finish line,’ it’s not a lazy reference to an unending grind or destination-less journey, but rather an expression of our belief in the limitless potential of sport — and design.”

With this opening paragraph from a foreword by Nike’s Chief Design Officer, John Hoke, the tone is set for “No Finish Line,” a new book that aims to invite, inspire and provoke the next generation of athletes to create a better world through design and sport.

Through exploratory, multilevel conversations on design and critical inputs to it ­­— such as sport research, technology and manufacturing — “No Finish Line” charts Nike’s 50 years of game-changing design and innovation in the service of athletes and sport and projects a vision for the next 50 years. In addition to the foreword from Hoke, the book includes speculative fiction by journalist Geoff Manaugh and essays from Sam Grawe, the author of “Nike: Better Is Temporary.” The essays describe five major shifts design may undergo in the coming decades. To arrive at these shifts, Grawe interviewed more than a dozen of Nike’s most inspiring designers, scientists, engineers, researchers and leaders, yielding unprecedented insights into Nike’s creative process. The collective voices projected a future of design that evolves from product to platform, performance to promise, elite to everyone, sustainable to symbiotic, and static to sensorial.

This sense of promise and evolution propels readers forward as “No Finish Line” defines Nike’s culture of innovation through the lens of the athletes, designers and scientists at its cutting edge; celebrates design not as an outcome, but as an endless journey; and suggests we can shape a better future by simply daring to create it.

“No Finish Line” is designed by Zak Group with custom illustrations by Bráulio Amado and synthesized imagery by PWR. Fluidly combining text and found imagery to create graphic-rich layouts and visual collages, the pocket-size paperback interprets the rich tradition of progressive bookmaking for a new era.

Published by Actual Source, “No Finish Line” retails for $26 and is available February 14 through booksellers, including Actual Source Books and Machus in the United States; Artwords Bookshop, Counterpoint, Design Museum Den Bosch, do you read me?!, ICA Bookstore, Librairie Sans Titre, MagCulture, Papercut, Vitra Design Museum and Yvon Lambert in Europe; and Bianji, Commune, DAIKANYAMA T-SITE and NADiff a/p/a/r/t in Japan.