Jan Hippchen, Global Creative Director Brand Design at PUMA, talks about innovations, iconic collaborations, and the art of combining design with functionality – and will be personally attending UPDATE BERLIN
Jan Hippchen is the creative mind behind many iconic design innovations at PUMA. As Global Creative Director of Brand Design, he leads the team responsible for iconic projects such as packaging designs, logos, and collaborations. In our interview, Jan provides a deep insight into his versatile role at PUMA and how he combines creativity with functionality. He talks about his passion for exceptional design projects, such as reviving the Super Puma character, collaborating with major athletes like Neymar Jr., and the challenge of integrating local culture into global design strategies. We also learn how his passion for photography has found not only a private but also a professional place in his work. If you want to learn more about the Dua Lipa collaboration and SUPER PUMA, you can meet Jan in person at UPDATE BERLIN.
As a Creative Director at PUMA, what’s a normal day like? Jan: Actually that’s not so easy to say. Of course, there are meetings in my calendar and there are ongoing projects to work on – but there’s always a little room for spontaneous, instant, surprising requests on which I may need to react. Sometimes I’m coming to the office and I still have no real plan of what’s going to happen. That shouldn’t sound chaotic, it’s actually something that I enjoy as it keeps things exciting — and me excited. As a creative, too much routine is not what you want, right?
So can you tell us a bit more about your role? Jan: You get a similar answer. On paper, my role seems to be clearly defined. In reality though, I sometimes struggle to explain in one or two sentences what exactly I’m doing. There are clear responsibilities though. For example, me and my team take care of all PUMA’s packaging. We create hundreds of artworks for special shoeboxes, all the hang tags, labels etc. We are the go-to-guys when it comes to brandings and guidelines or the creation of new logos, if for a new technology, a new franchise or a sign-off for a new partnership.
Would you have some examples of logos you have designed? Jan: Sure. The ones with the most longevity are probably our two main football silos – FUTURE and ULTRA. Both are carrying »my« logos since 6,7 or 8 years and have been sold millions of times. And I think it’s a big, big compliment that so far no one really saw the need to change or update them. When it comes to partnership logos, maybe two that stand out were the ones for Neymar Jr. and for Dua Lipa – for different reasons. I designed the NJR-logo basically overnight. It was the first quick round of ideas, and surprisingly got instant love. That was it. Which I think has never happened before in this industry. At least that’s what our back-then-CEO said. For Dua Lipa, I had created something completely different where I had broken all the rules I’ve set myself before. Everyone was on board with it and we were ready to go – until I suddenly heard that »Now Dua wants a butterfly«. Well, sometimes that happens and you just need to react. And in the end, it turned out pretty nice.
Let’s go back to your role and what you do. What’s the project you enjoy the most? Jan: Sometimes, within PUMA’s Creative Direction team, we kick off our own, special projects. Ideas we strongly believe in, which maybe don’t get instant love from the business side though. Then we, well, just do it. (Sorry) Let me give you two examples. Two years ago we got the chance to work with Otl Aicher’s famous pictograms he had designed for the Munich Olympics back in 1972. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity from both a sport / performance perspective as well as from a graphic design point of view. Aicher’s 100th birthday was about to come and we could be part of it. This project was a love affair from day one, as I had admired Aicher and his work since I learned about it at university. In the end, it was just two hoodies, a short and some t-shirts, but for me (and us) it was so much more! Without any big budget, we managed to get top athletes wearing these products. From Neymar Jr. to Karsten Warholm to Yaroslava Mahuchikh. I even shot some of these portraits myself and I’m still super proud of what we have achieved. So proud that in the end, I made a coffee table book to document everything.
That sounds great – what’s the other example? Jan: The second CD-initiated project is just another love affair: SUPER PUMA. I don’t know who might be familiar with our brand’s mascot from the 1970s/80s? Back then, SUPER PUMA was a cartoon character that targeted kids to get them into sport – and of course to tie them to PUMA. There was a Junior Club, there were comic books, there was some merch… And it basically looked like the green version of the Pink Panther. But over decades, it had gotten very quiet about this guy. Every now and then, we did a tee with one of the old graphics but I always wondered if we should bring SUPER PUMA back?
So one day I asked myself, »what would PIXAR do if we’d ask them to reimagine SUPER PUMA?« Well, I didn’t ask them, but myself, so I started to build my own PIXAR-version of SUPER PUMA in Photoshop. A green fake fur jacket felt like having the right fluffiness, a high-res nose of a Labrador added the right level of cuteness, two glossy yellow pool billiard balls had to act as the eyes. And then everyone who saw this new SUPER PUMA, just fell in love. Which resulted in a small capsule collection and a collab with STEIFF – yes, in the end, we had our small SUPER PUMA plush toys in our hands!
PUMA is not only one of the biggest sports brands, but obviously a player in the fashion world as well. How do you make sure to combine design and functionality while staying relevant in both worlds? Jan: In our performance categories, it’s easy. We put the athlete first and do everything to make them feel better, play better, train better – and look better. By now, PUMA has got 77 years of history in sports, so everything we do in our sports categories automatically feels authentic and proven by our past. On the Sportsyle side though, it’s not such a big difference. Everything we do here has its origins in sport. The classic sneakers of today used to be sports performance shoes in the 60s or 70s. The tracksuits people are wearing for comfort or style, used to be training outfits. It even goes down to graphics. Whatever the idea for a graphic is, we just need to make sure to keep sport in mind. Then it’s something we and a handful of other players can do – but no other brand could do in a credible and authentic way.
You joined PUMA back in 2008. Did you work in other areas before and is there anything you still benefit from? Jan: Yes. Before I started at PUMA, I worked in an agency based in Hamburg for some years. Initially trained as an Industrial Designer, I designed fragrance bottles for various well-known brands. Over time, I got more and more interested in not only looking at the bottles but to work on the outer packaging as well. The boxes you would see on the shelf. Having worked for brands like Gucci or D&G was a big, big learning as these people paid so much attention to every single detail. Sometimes this was painful, to look at the 46th sample of a rose gold metal cap. To come up with the 75th version of just the letter »2« which would be added to a product logo. It felt like Apple’s design ethos back then – a thousand no’s for one yes. And today, 17 years later, I feel that putting this extra attention to things still pays off. Not always, but often.
Working for a global brand in a global role, how do you deal with cultural differences and more regional needs or requests? Jan: Ideally by just going there and trying to better understand. And not just to look at what’s happening in certain markets but to have conversations with locals to figure out what’s relevant and what’s not. It’s surprising how much you can learn about a different place and its people in just a couple of days.
Let me give you one example. Since a couple of years, there is a side project which I called »PCT« – PUMA City Tees. I think it started with a trip to Istanbul back in 2018 where we spent three days with local colleagues, did quite an intense tourist program and had lots of conversations about what could be relevant for tourists – and what could be relevant for locals. The t-shirts we did sold pretty well and since then, I had the chance to travel half of the world to basically design some graphics afterward. Dubai, Shanghai, Seoul, Singapore, Mexico City, and just some weeks ago: India. And I am very, very grateful for that.
We heard that you are a passionate photographer. Is that purely private or part of your job as well? Jan: Sometimes it is. I don’t really call myself a photographer but »a designer with a camera«. Maybe out of respect towards real photographers? Towards people who actually know what they are doing? Some may say I got some talent and that I’ve got a good eye. Maybe that’s based on my graphic skills? Anyway, photography mainly remains my private pleasure. When I’m traveling, or just during a walk in the woods. But as said earlier, there have been occasions where I suddenly had to take portraits of some athletes. Or during the early Covid days, when from one day to the next we completely had stopped working with external resources but still had to take product shots of a few hundred shoes. Photography also plays a role in the City-Tee project I just mentioned. On these trips, I usually take hundreds of photos to have enough material to play with or use as thought starters afterward. And as a final comment on this topic: my absolute highlight was a (business) trip to Jamaica at the end of 2023 where actually one of my tasks was to document what I would see. I came back with some photos of training sessions at a PUMA-sponsored high school and I still think there is something magical about these pics.
Last question: You mentioned books earlier and we talked about photography. You have recently published a book, right? Jan: Not really. I mean, over the years I have done quite a few books and magazines. First and foremost for myself as I strongly believe in documenting and archiving things in an analogue way instead of just storing things on hard drives. The only book I made which has been officially published is a book called *I Like Birds*. This was me during the two Covid years, rediscovering my love for birds, getting back into birdwatching and finally photographing them. All the other books I’ve made are private travel books or small annual reports with all the things I’ve been working on over the years. They aren’t public though – as they contain a lot of confidential things as well as ideas and experiments that just never made it anywhere. Well, that’s just part of the job…
CREDITS
Creative Director Jan Hippchen
FEATURING: Jan Hippchen
-
Like
- Comment
ADVERTISING, PEOPLE, PORTRAIT, TRANSPORTATION, HAIR, MAKEUP, STILLS …. THE ACCOUNTS WITH
A BLUE STAR ARE APPROVED BY GOSEE
