Creative Director Luke Li Discusses His Role At Puma, Working with Virgil Abloh, Skepta, and His Career’s Beginnings.

Luke Li, also known as lukeiscrazyman, is a passionate force with over 15 years of experience working as a Creative Director/Lead, and a visual designer. 

@lukeiscrazyman / Instagram

Li has established himself as a prominent name in the creative direction industry, from his role as a Global Creative Lead for IKEA, working on the notable IKEA X Virgil Abloh collection, to now innovating the art direction of PUMA Sportstyle and Motorsport rollouts. 

@lukeiscrazyman / Instagram

Li spoke to New Wave Magazine in an exclusive interview about his beginnings in the industry and his favourite projects to date. 

What led you to want a career in Art Direction? 

It's quite interesting because my bachelor’s degree was in Interior design. I was always passionate about branding and marketing, I think I went to a workshop in Shanghai with a lot of advertising agency people working in branding and they said “you should do advertising”, I was like, I know nothing about advertising. 

Then I decided to study Art direction for my masters in the states, and since english wasn’t my first language, it felt like a natural fit. So I’m not from a graphic design background, but interior design helped shape me into a different type of creative. 

@lukeiscrazyman / Instagram

That's why when I landed [the creative direction role at] IKEA, it sounded like a perfect match in a way since I did have a certain background. I'm always able to touch in with certain companies that have a level of store design, It's easy for me to take on those kind of projects because of my background. 

What attracted you to IKEA and what were some of your favourite projects? 

I think I'm a product guy, so that's why the design of a product is quite important. And then, of course, the brand is also really important. So I think that's the key reason [I was attracted to IKEA].

@lukeiscrazyman / Instagram

I think working with Virgil [Abloh] was one of the highlights of my career. After meeting him, we talked through the vision of how we wanted to communicate the collection and bring it to life. I think that project helped me a lot to find a new way to approach collections. After that, the Swedish House Mafia collection was also a good one to really level up the way we traditionally did collections. 

IKEA

What attracted you to Puma, and how does the brand align with your personal creative values and vision? 

I think Puma is an iconic brand, and once I dug into my memory I remembered that they had such great products. Before, if I was in New York, I would always go to the Puma store to see what's happening. They were early to doing collaborations with brands such as McQueen and with Japanese designers, and they had a lot of great stuff. 

I think part of me remembered “wow I was crazy about Puma”, and now it's a bit different, and I think it was a good time to join the team and see what’s happening.  And now you can see, we bring back a lot of archives, we bring back a lot of iconic shoes, and also we work heavily on culture. 

@lukeiscrazyman / Instagram / Photo by Laia Benavides

What has been your favourite project, or product from Puma so far? 

Yeah, it's a tough one because there are a lot of new products I can't mention yet, but I think maybe the one with Skepta is a special one. The material and the team [were] very collaborative, and had met with [Skepta] and made sure the vision came through. 

@lukeiscrazyman / Instagram / Photo by Alex Cascallana

There was a launch event [for the collaboration], and it was even being promoted heavily at Coachella, and a special event in East Shoreditch in London. I think across all of those you can see the level of culture involvement, rather than just a commercial shot. I think that's quite a rich element of that campaign. 

Have you ever had a creative vision conflict with a commercial objective when working with a brand? 

I think that happens all the time, especially because we all just come from a creative perspective, but it’s really important to switch that perspective to understand why [a company] was not on board with [a concept]. 

@lukeiscrazyman / Instagram

What role does feedback the public or consumers have on your creative process? 

I think because of my interior design background I care about the user [experience], so [consumers] are key. That's why I have a look at the engagement, check out what they write about things, and see what they thought.

Overall I want to improve, because there's no perfect project, especially within the commercial landscape, unless you're an artist, then it's different.

How do you use partnerships with public figures such as Skepta to enhance Puma's brand, while also their personal identity?

Yeah, I think the key thing is knowing them really well and then asking why they are with Puma, try to explain why you have an answer to that, then you probably have a good angle to tell that story.

@lukeiscrazyman / Instagram / Photo by Alex Cascallana

I think that's the key thing… you can't over overdress, you can't change their identity, because I think that's already a loss of this partnership. You choose partners for certain reasons.

 Of course, it depends on the story and the partners, and then trying to understand how to utilise  and combine both. For example, with a fashion company, asking how to tell an interesting sports story. Then those two will just naturally merge. 

What campaign with Puma has been your proudest so far? 

With our collaboration with Formula One we tried a lot of new things. I think the campaign really appealed to Gen Z with its basic style, but we made it really elevated in fashion. 

Luke Li / LinkedIn

Including Formula One either by having a runway on the track or even using motion blur to introducing the speed element, I think that level of simplicity is quite interesting. Since we can't show the car, we can't show any new colours, so there's a lot of limitations for that brand. I think there's a lot of interesting small boundaries we've been pushing, by trying a lot of new things. 

Luke Li / LinkedIn