Work

Athletic content typically isn’t in my wheelhouse, but my work with Nike has been about so much more than sports. As a Creative at Zeus Jones, I worked with Nike’s Made to Play initiative on the Coaching for Belonging playbook. This free, downloadable and printable guide helps empowering grown-ups like parents, coaches and teachers build recreational spaces where every kid feels—and knows—they belong.

After a few years away from journalism and publishing, this project felt like a return to form. It was fascinating working with strategists to dive deep into what belonging really means for kids. Another creative and I built out a narrative based on that research, plus dozens of interviews we’d done with coaching experts from all over the world. We then worked with amazing Zeus Jones designers to bring it all to life. Along with Coaching for Belonging itself, I helped create a toolkit to support Nike’s internal teams as they rolled out the playbook. We also created promotional postcards to be distributed at Nike events. As a parent and someone who had not-so-great experiences with sports as a kid, this research-heavy, deeply journalistic project was satisfying to execute.

The following year, I worked on positioning and naming for Swoosh 1, an innovative baby/toddler shoe launched in late 2023. That project involved deep research into infant and toddler gait development, dreaming up inspirational ideas for packaging and retail environments, and writing a positioning statement that Nike teams could rally around as they launched the shoe.