Conversations with Jake Mata

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jake Mata.

Hi Jake, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I have always been into sneakers, I use to have a pair of Kobes back when he was with Adidas when I was a kid that I loved. I really think that’s when my shoe obsession began. Growing up I was into arts and crafts during school and when I started playing sports and got into watching them. During high school I noticed 2 things: how good the players were, and how cool their shoes were. I saw a pair i had never seen before and found out they were hand painted, and it kind of clicked for me to try it. I knew combing my interests in art and shoes would be fun to play around with. As I was just messing around trying to figure out how to paint shoes one of my friends told me I could paint her Nike Roshes. At the time that was the shoe to customize, so I was excited! I decided to paint them galaxy theme, my first original idea (not really original because everyone was doing it, but it felt like it lol). There I was painting the shoes on the floor of my room with any type of paint I could find, they dried up super stiff, but they actually looked like a galaxy, I was pumped! After that pair I found the right paint and materials to use, I practiced my techniques and found my passion for painting/creating sneakers. Once I felt okay at it I went ahead and created an instagram to show off all my work and created visionarykickz. Little by little I grew in followers, People would share my posts, and I upgraded to painting in my garage for more space. It became a fun hobby for me while I went through college. One day, I noticed I was wearing an old pair of Nike Huaraches for a long time to the point where it was time to get new ones but I didn’t want to throw away the old ones – so I decided to try to paint them and make them look new again. I was really into the color army green/ olive so I painted the whole shoe that color, I posted it and the rest is “history”. That shoe “blew up” and I started getting orders and requests to paint other peoples nike huaraches all sorts of colors for months. Army green/olive color, beige, gold, red and any other color you could think of. During this process people would message me asking how to keep the paint from cracking or how I was making the shoes look so crisp, so I decided to start my YouTube channel also called visionarykickz. I started off like anything new shy, timid, not really comfortable being in front of a camera, and did quick Time-lapses with some voice over. Super simple easy and quick videos. After posting for about a year I didn’t see much progress on YouTube until one day I posted a Nike Air Force one Louis vuitton custom and over night it hit 20k views! (Today it has over 1 million views) I was in shock and felt like I had my big break. As I got more comfortable with the camera I started posting better videos and grew visionarykickz to what it is today. I now post on all platforms from instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook all under visionarykickz. As I posted more, more traction came to me and I started to work with cool people on fun projects and collaborations that I never thought could happen. During college I was studying graphic design so I was really locked in on art at this point and expanded to things more than just shoes now, I do it all. I make custom shoes, packaging, rugs, tables, clothes, and even some custom figurines. I’m always looking to expand and create new fun things in the field I love.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I’d say it’s been a pretty smooth ride to be honest. It’s been more so just a road of learning new things and continuing to create. I think the biggest things I had to learn and overcome was getting taking advantage of. As I grew followers, influencers and celebrities would find me and try to get free stuff as “promo” so me being all excited I said hell yeah! The promo sometimes never came, that’s the business we’re in when social media is involved, not all people are the same of course! I’ve made stuff for some influencers and celebrities that I still have connection and contact with that I didn’t think I would who have even referred me to others. So every chance I get to thank those people or “give back” to the ones that help me I definitely try to. I appreciate them! It has always been a challenge for me to juggle work, school, life and sneakers at the same time, sometimes all in the same day! Luckily I graduated now and I’m able to focus more on balancing work and life with customizing shoes which I love and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a full time sneaker customizer, which basically means I paint shoes lol. I paint shoes from the simplest design, to the craziest. My favorite kind of customs are the ones where I have full control from start to finish. Creating the packaging and shoe to go along with it. I think me being me my favorite customs to do are the one that are sport/music related and even some cartoon designs! The possibilities are really endless though. For example the pair I am most proud to talk about is the shoes I did for Kelly Stafford (Mathew Stafford , LA RAMS QB wife) to wear to the SUPER BOWL. Im a Rams fan being from la so this was HUGE to me! Cheering on the team while going to the Super Bowl having Kelly wear them on field after seeing them win the Super Bowl was nuts! Oh yeah I also got the meet both of them! I think what sets me apart from everyone else is my unique take on sneakers. I don’t copy anyone in my space I don’t try recreate other peoples work, I just create from my head and stay in my own lane. Whatever you see on my page I’ve created from my original thoughts gathering some information from clients and putting it all together on my own. Being able to create something fun, cool, and new is what sets me apart, my originality.

What makes you happy?
There are a lot of things that bring me happiness to be honest. I try to see the positives in everything even if there really isn’t any reason to. Seeing people react, engage with my art work is huge to me! Sports bring me happiness because even during low times you can get with friends or strangers at the gym and play a good game of basketball and just forget about the outside world for a bit. A huge thing for me is being able to hang out with friends and family. I feel so blessed to have a huge support system, they hype me up and support me like no other (literally I can just show them a straight line on paper and they will show it to everyone they know lol) they are great. Being with great company gives me happiness for-sure. I’m simple, sports, art, shoes, and good quality time!

And last but not least my girlfriend. She has brought the most happiness to me since day 1. She has always been the one in my corner, pushing me to do better not for her but for myself. She sees the vision and helps me execute things and is there when I feel I can’t, she always knows I can. S/o to her because without her there really isn’t a VISIONARYKICKZ.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://visionarykickz.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/visionarykickz/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/visionarykickz
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@visionarykickz