This month’s cover is a work of art. It is a frozen moment, depicting the meeting of different cultures without clashing but the appreciation of both. It was captured by Out The Box (OTB)’s booth when they were at the Riyad Sneak Me, the largest sneaker event in the Middle East last October. We instantly fell in love with it and new it was true bazaar cover material and OTB were kind enough to allow us to feature it. We spoke to OTB’s Tareq Q to learn more about the event, their involvement, and how this shot came to be.
What was OTB’s role at Sneak Me?
We were brought on as the official and exclusive creative consultants.
Some of our scope: Ideation, branding, on-boarding, content (videos and pictures), and anything related to the creative side – ideas for the activities / activations / installations, etc…
What was the inspiration behind the OTB booth and bringing the warehouse to Riyadh?
We wanted to show the people of Riyadh that one of the guiding principles of OTB is to preserve our existing culture through art, creativity, and sport. We felt that our love for basketball and what we did with the hoops in our warehouse in Kuwait embodied this. This is the reason why we decided to recreate a smaller version of the warehouse at Sneak Me.
How the cover shot was captured, and who is the person posing?
This was a random and unexpected moment. One of the shemagh designed basketballs caught the eye of a gentleman who was walking past the OTB booth. He then walked in and started to spin the ball on his finger. Sid, our lead photographer, had his camera in hand and snapped some photos of him right away. It was one of the best moments we captured while out there.
Please tell us more about your experience of being on the panel, and contributing massively to the impressive Sneaker Museum
The panel was a great experience. I got to learn more about the art of conversation as well as hear the stories of all the guests on the panel. I left most of the talks feeling inspired and enlightened. The Sneaker Museum was the highlight of the festival according to many. So, it was an honor to be a big part of it with my good friend Faisal Al-Saud @faisaltaf We both exhibited a total of 200 of some of our rarest and most valuable pairs for the museum visitors to see.
Is Sneak Me going to be a recurring event?
We hope so and look forward to seeing another one at the same time next year.
If you are not already following OTB, do yourself a favor and follow @outtheboxww on Instagram for some serious creative eyecandy.
