I was invited to the Nike corporate headquarters to do a work for their employees. The Nike company seems an enviable place to work. It is a pristine complex in Portland with a very campus-like environment. During the summer they have an event called “thirsty Thursdays” with music, tasty food and entertainment. The name “Blue Ribbon” comes from a story about the company’s early days. When the founders went to Japan to see about getting their sport shoe designs mass-produced, they were asked for the brand name. They realized that they hadn’t even thought about it, (very different from today, when branding usually comes before product design). Because they had been drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon  beer at lunch, they responded “Blue Ribbon Brand”, to save face with the Japanese manufacturers. This response was probably better than Nike, which would have made no sense in Japan at that time. Naturally, when they had time to ponder the question, they selected the brand we know today. I was a bit concerned about the design, which was very straightforward and did not have specific places for the public to pose. Perhaps for this very reason, the public had a lot of fun with trying all sorts of different positions.