DESIGN OF THINGS TO COME
Nike’s Mark
Parker, a designer
who rose to CEO,
embodies the way
American design
blends aesthetics
with business
needs.
I was visiting with Nike CEO Mark
Parker at his company’s Beaverton,
Oregon, headquarters last summer
when I asked him if he thought of
Nike as an American company. I’d
been on a tour of the corporate campus, an American phenomenon—
past the Mia Hamm building, the
Tiger Woods Center, the John McEn-roe building—and had sat in on a
meeting at Nike’s secretive Innovation Kitchen, where the company
invents and tests new products and
technologies. Now, he and I were
ensconced in his distinctive office,
surrounded by artifacts he had collected from around the world.
Parker paused thoughtfully,
then respectfully demurred. Nike,
he explained, is an international
company. He pointed out that Nike
does business in hundreds of countries around the globe, and that its
brand is among the most widely
known, well regarded, and most
valuable on the planet.
Yet there is something quintes-
sentially American about Nike—
from its entrepreneurial launch by
Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight to
the competitive, ambitious, can-do
ethos of its marketing. Its Ameri-
canness may be most evident in the
combination of aesthetics and eco-
nomics that drive its products. This
pairing is a hallmark of American
design, infusing the most success-
ful American businesses of our day,
including Apple, Starbucks, and
others. That’s why, at a moment
when there is much discussion
about the future of the U.S. economy,
we’ve chosen to devote this issue to
the topic of American design—and
to the competitive advantage that
this distinctive approach to business
can provide.
Robert Safian editor@fastcompany.com
BENJAMIN LOW Y (SAFIAN); PATRIK GIARDINO (PARKER)
