InsightsInsightsSep 2026
Graffiti, Pop Art, and Beyond: A Guide to Custom Sneaker Styles
Most custom work falls into a handful of recognisable styles. Knowing which one you are drawn to makes choosing an artist far easier — and makes the first conversation about your pair much shorter.
Graffiti
Tags, throw-ups, drips and hand-styles lifted from wall writing. Loose, energetic, and the style that reads most clearly from across a room.
It suits leather panels and plenty of open space. Ask to see lettering specifically — clean hand-style is much harder than it looks.
Pop art
Flat blocks of bright colour, heavy outlines, halftone dots, comic-panel faces. Bold, playful, and highly photogenic.
Because the colour is flat, precision matters: look for crisp edges and even fills in the artist's portfolio.
Illustration and character work
Anime, cartoon and original character art, often wrapped across panels so the design continues around the shoe.
This is the most detail-heavy style and usually the priciest. Judge it on faces — expressions are where weak work shows.
Portraits and realism
Photographic likenesses built in thin layers: a person, a pet, a musician. The most technically demanding style on a curved, flexing surface.
Provide a high-resolution, well-lit photograph. A bad reference limits the result no matter who paints it.
Abstract, texture and material work
Colour fields, splatter, marbling, or swapped materials and stitching rather than imagery. Quieter and often the most wearable day to day.
If you want something that goes with everything you own, this is usually the direction to ask about.
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