The new movie “Air,” which debuted on April 5, tells the story of how Nike landed Michael Jordan as the face of its basketball division and created the first Air Jordan sneakers. The shoes – and the resulting line of products and fashion craze – changed the world of sports, fashion, and pop culture as we knew it. The movie, directed by Ben Affleck, stars Matt Damon as Sonny Vaccaro, the Nike employee and later athlete’s rights advocate who brokered the deal; Viola Davis as Jordan’s mom, Deloris, who fought for her son; and Affleck himself as Nike founder Phil Knight.
Though “Air” focuses on the Air Jordan saga, other parts of the Nike origin story play a role in the film, too. During one scene, Knight tells Vaccaro that he originally didn’t like the iconic Nike Swoosh and in another, the workers joke about how much they don’t like the “Just Do It” tagline and its bleak inspiration.
Ahead, we break down the truth in these little nuggets of the Nike origin story.
Related: “Air” Is Far From Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s First Movie Together – See the Full List
What Is the Origin of Nike’s “Just Do It” Slogan?
In “Air,” Vaccaro and his coworkers joke about “Just Do It” and say that it came from the final words of a man before he was executed. This is, bizarrely, true. Advertising legend Dan Wieden, who died in 2022 at the age of 77, came up with the slogan for the company, which was the first client of his newly formed advertising firm, per NPR. He then talked about the origin of the phrase in a 2015 interview with Design Indaba.
After reading that the final words of death row inmate Gary Gilmore were “You know, let’s do it,” Wieden got inspired. “I remember when I read that I was like, that’s amazing. I mean how, in the face of that much uncertainty, do you push through that? So I didn’t like the ‘let’s’ thing, and so I just changed that, ’cause otherwise, I’d have to give him credit,” he joked.
In a 2019 documentary called “Art & Copy,” Wieden said the appeal was the “do it” part of Gilmore’s phrasing. “None of us really paid that much attention,” he said of the macabre origin, per <a href=”
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https://www.businessinsider.com/nike-just-do-it-inspired-utah-killer-gary-gilmore-2019-7″ data-ga-action=”body text link”>Business Insider. “We thought ‘Yeah. That’d work.'”
Wieden also told the website Dezeen in a 2015 interview that Knight was originally skeptical that the brand needed any advertising (which viewers also see in “Air”). “Phil Knight said, ‘We don’t need that sh*t’,” Wieden told the site. “I said, ‘Just trust me on this one.’ So they trusted me and it went big pretty quickly.” The marketing, he said, worked because it wasn’t about the product; it was about making everyone, no matter their goal, feel like an athlete. However, “Air”‘s presentation of the tagline isn’t exactly truthful.
Jordan signed with Nike in 1984. Wieden didn’t come up with “Just Do It” until 1988. As NPR noted, that was the year of the Air Jordan 3, the Air Trainer 1, and the Air Revolution, which became some of the biggest shoes in the company’s history.
Where Did the Nike Swoosh Logo Come From?
Just as iconic as “Just Do It” is, so is the Nike Swoosh, but it predates the catchy slogan by 17 years. Nike was founded by Knight and Bill Bowerman in 1971. They were track athletes who were passionate about running shoes. They originally started a resale company called Blue Ribbon Sports.
Knight later hired graphic designer Carolyn Davidson to design logos for his company, leading the former to pick the Swoosh symbol, which Davidson says was inspired by the wings of the Greek goddess Nike. “He said, I don’t love it but it’ll grow on me,” Davidson told NPR in 2011 of Knight’s reaction, which Affleck’s Knight also says in the film.
Knight paid her $35 at a rate of $2 an hour, and she continued to do graphic design work for him for years. Davidson was later given Nike stock, which has remained valuable, though she told NPR that she’s not a millionaire. Davidson is a pretty private person who has otherwise stayed out of the spotlight and previously told the outlet that, despite her design, she’s never been a runner.
“Air” is in theaters now.
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