Chad Ballew
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Personal Project  ·  Limited Print Series

Sick Kicks

What happens when hype gets unhealthy? A limited print series that takes the world's most coveted sneakers and renders them diseased, mutating, and oozing with grotesque life.

Project Type
Personal Project
My Role
Illustrator · Designer
Medium
Digital Illustration · Print
Format
Limited Print Series

When hype
gets sick.

The Sick Kicks series takes the most coveted sneakers in the world and asks a simple question: what happens when hype gets unhealthy? Each piece renders an iconic silhouette in full decay, mutated and oozing, but still unmistakably itself.

The proportions, the colorways, the details that made these shoes worth obsessing over are all still there. Pushed into something grotesque, they become almost sympathetic. Objects that once defined status, now looking like they need help.

Released as a limited print series, each piece sold as a standalone work to collectors who got the joke and appreciated the craft.

About the Work

  • 4 original illustrations, each based on a culturally iconic sneaker silhouette
  • Grotesque visual language applied with precision: decay, mutation, and ooze as design tools
  • Satire of sneaker culture and status object obsession through the lens of craft
  • Released as a limited edition print series, sold individually to collectors
4
Original Prints
Ltd.
Edition Release
100%
Self-Directed
0
Hype Left Intact
Next Project
Sickoz Branding