Building Custom Free Shoes with NIKEiD

I was recently in the market for a pair of new running shoes, specifically I was looking for a pair of Nike Frees.  I have long been aware of the concept and potential benefits of the Frees and I had recently heard a lot of positive reviews from people who owned them, so I figured it was time to get myself a pair.

After a few trips to a couple different stores I realized that most Nike Frees on the market were pretty ugly and those that weren't, were definitely not my style.  That of course led me to the internet and eventually to the NIKEiD site.  NIKEiD is a site that allows shoppers to create highly customized shoes and sports apparel and order them online.  When NIKEiD first started it had only a handful of products and allowed for a good amount of customization.  But, now there is a huge selection of shoes and an almost limitless amount of customization available.

The NIKEiD shoe creation interface is very well laid out and very intuitive to use.  You can either choose to use the menu system that let's you pick from the different customizable shoe parts or you can simply click on the part of the shoe in the preview image that you want to customize.  I preferred clicking on the shoe itself since I wanted to see how one color worked together with another.  Every part of the shoe was customizable.  The only drawback to the customization process was that not every color was available for every component.  So if you want electrolime lining to go with your electrolime laces, well sorry, you won't be able to do that.  But even with that, there are still a dizzying array of color combination's that you can come up with.

NIKEiD shoe creation UI

For my shoes I finally decided to go with an Ohio State theme. Coming up with the different "looks" was tremendously fun for me. I literally spent hours creating my Nike Frees. NIKEiD allows you to store your designs in your very own myLocker. This is a great feature to have, but I was disappointed that I could only store 5 designs in my locker. This is probably more than enough space for most people, but I'm the type of guy who finds more enjoyment in creating characters in games like WoW than actually playing the games itself.

myLOCKER on NIKEiD

So once I had created my masterpiece and ordered my shoes, the only thing I had left to wonder about was how close the preview images in the designer will actually look like the real shoes.  Three weeks later (the shoes were made and shipped from China) I got my answer.

NIKEiD preview image

Actual shoe

NIKEiD preview image

Actual shoe

NIKEiD preview image

Actual shoe

As you can see the NIKEiD designer does a really good job approximating what the actual shoe will look like when it's delivered.  The only small differences were a slightly darker grey on the upper and slightly bigger letters for the embroidered "OHIO STATE" and "BUCKEYES", both of which I actually like better.  The one thing that did surprise me was that the Nike swoosh is really shiny.  Looking at the preview images I'm sure you're saying, "of course it's shiny", but when I was creating the shoes, I just assumed it was a flaw in the designer that made it shiny.  I'm just pointing it out because it's very jarring if it's not what you're expecting.

I totally love my Nike Frees.  They are the most comfortable shoes I've ever owned (and the best looking too).  They feel like you're wearing socks with sole protection and arch support.  These are, of course, great for running but they are also wonderful to just wear around when you know you'll be doing a bit of walking.  You'll also avoid the looks of contempt in public that come from wearing crocs outside the house as an adult (yes I'm talking to you).

So overall, I had a very positive NIKEiD experience creating my custom Frees and I give it a 4 1/2 out of 5 socks.

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