"If you do good work, hopefully people will respect that and want to hire you again."

TJ Harley, founder and creative director of Harley Creative and Vectorloop comes aboard the podcast this week. TJ was the former creative director of the Collegiate Licensing Company where he lead branding and creative strategy on college sports brands for nearly 11 years before leaving to join the ranks of entrepreneurship.

On this episode, we talk about TJ's career – from his first design job at a t-shirt shop in Clemson, South Carolina to his decade at the CLC, to starting his own businesses – TJ has a great story about his career climb struggling with confidence to later working on brands such as the NCAA, BCS and more.

We also discuss the importance of business relationships, not burning bridges and how who you know is more important than what you know.

The pleasures and challenges of full-time freelancing out of your house, including the fighting the urge to not shower daily also make their way into the conversation.

Lastly TJ gives us some insight into his latest projects with the College Football Hall of Fame and the Vault of American Football and reveals his disdain for creative briefs and brand standards.

Mentions include:


TJ Harley on Twitter
Harley Creative
Harley Creative on Twitter
Harley Creative on Dribbble
ACC's 50th Anniversary Logo
Collegiate Licensing Company
IMG College
Vectorloop
2006 SEC Men's Basketball Tournament
New NCAA Branding by Joe Bosack & Co.
Joe Bosack
Todd Radom
Fraser Davidson
Skye Dillon
Georgia State University branding
Kris Bazen, Sports Fonts Foundry
Fermata Partners
Collegiate Consulting
College Football Hall of Fame
The Vault of American Football
American Road Trip



Our next guest is Tim Oliver. Tim is an Art Director at Golf Digest magazine where he has been creating award-winning work for over 15 years.

Did you enjoy this episode? Then please rate and/or write a review of the show on iTunes. Also, be sure to follow show host, @TAdamMartin and @MakersofSport on twitter.

Episode 31: TJ Harley, Founder/Creative Director, Harley Creative

Conversations about design, branding, creative business, products, footwear, technology, entrepreneurship and more in the sports industry. Featured in Apple Podcasts New & Noteworthy. Missing episode numbers are paid & private community content. Join the community at makersofsport.com/community.

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Tech News

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Gadgets

Software How-To

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Investing

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There is perhaps no better way to end Makers of Sport's podcast then to provide what may be the most inspiring story in its history.

Ali Rahmoun—3-D Designer, Creative Director, and Founder of Sports Templates, a digital asset company whose products are used by #smsports creatives in the NBA, NFL, NHL, and more—joined the show in 2021 to share his inspiring story.

A native of Syria, Ali discovered the Internet in a war-torn, Isis-occupied country and began teaching himself graphic and web design as a teenager there. Initially, he fell in love with interacive Flash websites and frequented the niche platforms millennial creatives often found ourselves on during that time such as DeviantArt, Dribbble, and Behance.

Overcoming many hardships, including once having to power his computer via a truck battery due power outages from war so he could meet the deadline of a client, Ali developed a strong instinct to learn under intense circumstances and persevere. His eventual passion for creative entrepreneurship eventually led to him creating Sports Templates, an online marketplace creating and selling 3-D assets as Photoshop templates such as uniforms, athletics courts and fields, sports equipment, digital apparel, and other items.

Listen along as we discuss Ali's story, content marketing, the state of design tools, the importance of learning how to learn, 3-D's future in this new era of design, and much more.

Mentions Include:


Sports Templates Website
Sports Templates on Twitter
Sports Templates on IG
"Show Your Work: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered" by Austin Kleon
Ash Thorp
Adam's Tinker Hatfield toy
Blender 3d Software
Ali's Basketball NFT project
Ali's A.I. Logo Project


Thanks again to Ali Rahmoun for coming aboard the show. Be sure to checkout his website in order to take advantage of holiday deals that Sports Templates is offering. Also follow Sports Templates on Instagram and Twitter, and checkout his upcoming logo A.I. project launching soon.

As of now, there is no next guest on the podcast. Hosting and producing this show has been a tremendous blessing and I've been able to meet many amazing people and lifelong friends. For now, the show must end due to numerous life cirumstances and other priorities. Maybe this is for forever, maybe not. I truly don't know. But, I do plan to keep tweeting and hope to evolve MoS into something that is still useful for the sports design community as it has done so much for me both personally and professionally. I sincerely thank you for the support over the years.

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and/or write a review of the show on  Podcasts and be sure to follow host @TAdamMartin and Makers of Sport® on Twitter & Instagram.

Creative Entrepreneurship, 3-D and Selling Digital Assets with Ali Rahmoun of Sports Templates

Jessie Kavana (aka JKav) is a Senior Graphic Designer at BSE Global, the company that owns the Brooklyn Nets, NY Liberty, Nets GC and more. She joined the show to discuss her career and evolution as a creative.

A native New Yorker with a passion for hoops and a dream to work in sports marketing for the New York Knicks, Jess began her journey at Skidmore College as a college basketball player.

Stints in college athletics and ESPN would finally lead Jess to settle down in Brooklyn to work for the 'all black everything' Nets. It has been in there where Jkav has really found a home and has caught her stride as an in-house sports designer.

Along with previously discussing her career path, we discuss how Jess has gained trust with her leaders and ownership group and it has allowed for her to take on some high-profile projects within the organization such as working on uniforms with Nike, designing the player entryway, and more.

Jkav touches on how the Covid-19 shutdowns led her to experiment with a new discipline: illustration. We discuss how she used the quarantines to push herself and evolve her creative skillset.

Lastly, we discuss Jessie's re-awakened past hobby of sneaker painting and customization. Sneaker painting is having its moment in sports culture and Jessie has been able to take this hobby and leverage it to work with professional athletes as a side hustle.

Listen along as JKav shares her story.

Mentions Include:


JKav Portfolio
JKav on Twitter
JKav on IG
Learfield IMG College
ESPN Stats Twitter
Ep. 24: Chin Wang, Sr. CD at ESPN
Carol Boyl, ESPN CD
Lucas Nickerson, MNF CD at ESPN
Ep. 73: Tim O'Shaughnessy, College Football CD at ESPN
Ep. 5: Steve Vollmer, Jr., (Current) Creative Director, Tampa Bay Bucs
@BamBamBam99
Disney series illustrations


My next guest is Ali Rahmoun, Founder and Creative Director of SportsTemplates, a company that provides 3d content and templates to the sports industry. Ali can be found on Instagram & Twitter.

Sign up for the email newsletter for updates, discounts on future products and exclusive content for subscribers.

You can also show your support and keep the podcast sponsor free by joining the member community or purchasing merchandise from the Makers of Sport® shop.

Additionally, if you enjoyed this episode, please rate and/or write a review of the show on  Podcasts and be sure to follow host @TAdamMartin and Makers of Sport® on Twitter & Instagram.

Basketball, Sneaker Customs, Illustration & Graphic Design with Jessie Kavana of the Brooklyn Nets

Dexton Deboree, Founder & Chief Creative Officer of Falcon, and director of the award-winning documentary, "Unbanned: The Legend of the AJ1", joined the podcast to discuss storytelling, entrepreneurship and the role of filmmaking in sports culture.

A lost youth in Florida, Dexton didn't have a path. He was unsure of his future; however, a revelatory moment in the middle of the night in college changed him forever and led him to creative pursuits and a transfer to a film school.

Obsessed with the idea of being a screenwriter, Dexton became fixated on writing—almost to a fault—believing that if he wasn't writing he wasn't pursuing his destiny. This caused him to nearly miss out on a breadth of experience he would later gain as a P.A., which led to a wealth of knowledge about the business of film.

Listen in as Dexton shares stories about the early years of his career and how his unorthodox path led him to eventually buy and rebrand a studio, and later leave that studio to found Falkon®.

Dexton shares the things he's learned being an entrepreneur in film, including how unpredictabe business is and how no one truly has things figured out.

Lastly we discuss two films Dexton wrote, directed and produced: "Unbanned: The Legend of the AJ1", a film about the legendary sneaker and its alleged banning from the league featuring numerous interviews with famous personalities at Nike, the NBA and entertainment; and "Promiseland", a docu-series following 2019-20 NBA Rookie Ja Morant as he ventures through the first year of his pro basketball career which happened to include Covid-19 shutdowns, the NBA bubble, social justice issues and winning Rookie of the Year.

Mentions Include:


Dexton on IG
Falcon on IG
Falcon Website
'Range' by David Epstein
Los York
Episode 110 with Barton Damer
Jimmy Smith, Ad Legend
The Art of Flight documentary
Unbanned: The Legend of the AJ1



My next guest is Jessie Kavana, a Senior Designer for BSE Global, the company that owns the Brooklyn Nets, Barclays Center, NY Liberty, NY Islanders and more. She can be found on Instagram & Twitter.

Sign up for the email newsletter for updates, discounts on future products and exclusive content for subscribers.

You can also show your support and keep the podcast sponsor free by joining the member community or purchasing merchandise from the Makers of Sport® shop.

Additionally, if you enjoyed this episode, please rate and/or write a review of the show on  Podcasts and be sure to follow host @TAdamMartin and Makers of Sport® on Twitter & Instagram.

Filmmaking & Entrepreneurship in Sports & Advertising with Falkon® Founder Dexton Deboree

"Apply what you learn [online] and actually do something—even if it's not for making money—just make something. Do something with what you're learning and practice it."

Matt Halfhill, founder of Nice Nicks, is not a monolith or a cliche ‘sneakerhead’. The son of college professors who moved to California from the Midwest, Matt played in a Dixieland Jazz band as a kid, fell in love with sneakers in the Caribbean in Grenada, and dropped out of college to start the Internet’s first-ever sneaker blog. Today, what started as a blog has become a digital media brand that is one of the most trusted in the footwear industry with over 4 million followers on Instagram.

From experimenting with web development in the late 90s to learning to sell overstocked sneakers on eBay from his first job, Matt developed a love of technology and digital communication as a youth.

Halfhill joins MoS to discuss the story of Nice Kicks, its mission to be inlusive of all folks wanting to become a fan of sneakers no matter their level of knowledge about the industry, as well as how the company has evolved over the years.

We discuss the shift of content marketing from brands, what it was like to open and then later popular brick-and-mortar sneaker shop, as well as why news is a commodity and our voice is all we have to sell that is truly unique when it comes to building a digital media brand.

Matt's love of sneakers and his hacker-like mentality for figuring things out has led to a lifelong career in a billion dollar niche at the intersection of sport, culture and fashion.

Listen along as Matt shares the story of NiceKicks.com.

Mentions Include:


Matt Halfhill on IG
Matt Halfhill on Twitter
Nice Kicks Website
Nice Kicks on IG
Converse Sky Rider
Reebok Answer 1 "Navy Patent"
Jimmy Smith, advertising veteran
Nice Kicks Shop


My next guest is Dexton Deboree, founder & filmmaker at Falkon®; a content creation company born at the intersection of advertising and entertainiment with clients such as Nike, Brand Jordan, MLB, and more.

Sign up for the email newsletter for updates, discounts on future products and exclusive content for subscribers.

You can also show your support and keep the podcast sponsor free by joining the member community or purchasing merchandise from the Makers of Sport® shop.

Additionally, if you enjoyed this episode, please rate and/or write a review of the show on  Podcasts and be sure to follow host @TAdamMartin and Makers of Sport® on Twitter & Instagram.

Founding the Internet's First-Ever Sneaker Blog with Nice Kicks Founder Matt Halfhill

Tori Boykins is a creative with many layers. A boxer, entrepeneur, graphic designer and gritty midwesterner, Tori joined the show to discuss her long journey breaking into the sports design scene, first at the Kansas City Chiefs, and currently as a graphic designer with the Kansas City Royals.

From majoring in interior design at a Big Ten university known for engineering, to starting a business in college and running it six years, Tori has had quite an eclectic career. We attempt to peel back the many layers of her story beginning with a love of art and geek culture as a kid in Cincinnati, Ohio.

We discuss how she got sucked into "old school mentality" choosing to attend community college to get an associates in graphic design after already obtaining a Bachelors in Interior Design years earlier and founding a small business.

Tori also elaborates on how a black-owned design studio in Texas gave her a chance as a design intern, as well as how pitching free projects to real, underserved sports brands such as women's boxing and a local basketball team led her to an interview with an NBA team and an eventual gig in the NFL.

Throughout the episode, we discover a common theme of Tori's midwestern grit and hustle, as well as how important humility and risk-taking are when it comes to pursuing your dreams in the sports business.

Lastly, Tori touches on the importance of learning new skills and why she hopes to leave a positive legacy for minorities that come after her in the sports design industy.

Mentions Include:


Tori Boykins Portfolio
Tori Boykins on Instagram
Tori Boykins on Twitter
J12 Designs
Alamo City Aztecs
Tori's WBC & IBF women's boxing poster
UnderConsideration's Brand New
Ashley Strauss, Creative Director, Detroit Lions
Ashley Strauss on MoS
Jordan Giesler, Brand & Creative Manager, Kansas City Chiefs
Jordan Giesler on MoS
Caitlin Wienck, Design Manager, Kansas City Chiefs



My next guest is Matt Halfhill, the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Nice Kicks. Matt is an early 2000s Interent entrepeneur that has made a living his entire life working for himself providing breaking news, commentary and history in the sneaker industry.

Sign up for the email newsletter for updates, discounts on future products and exclusive content for subscribers.

You can also show your support and keep the podcast sponsor free by joining the member community or purchasing merchandise from the Makers of Sport® shop.

Additionally, if you enjoyed this episode, please rate and/or write a review of the show on  Podcasts and be sure to follow host @TAdamMartin and Makers of Sport® on Twitter & Instagram.

Tori Boykins, Graphic Designer, Kansas City Royals

Makers of Sport® Podcast

Episode 31: TJ Harley, Founder/Creative Director, Harley Creative

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