Who conceptualized the Nike Air Max line?

Tinker Hatfield conceptualized the Nike Air Max line.

Hatfield joined Nike in 1981 after studying architecture at the University of Oregon, initially working on retail spaces and company buildings. He moved into footwear design in the mid-1980s, bringing an architectural interest in structure, circulation and exposed technology to Nike’s running shoes.

For the first Air Max, later known as the Air Max 1, Hatfield drew inspiration from Paris’s Centre Pompidou, whose exterior exposes pipes, ducts and other systems. He applied that idea to footwear by making the Air cushioning visible through a window in the midsole. The shoe debuted in 1987 and established the visual identity of the Air Max family.

Hatfield did not invent Nike Air itself; aeronautical engineer M. Frank Rudy brought the cushioning concept to Nike in 1977. Nor did he design every later Air Max model. Sergio Lozano, for example, created the visual design of the Air Max 95. The canonical answer to this question is Hatfield because he conceived the Air Max line’s breakthrough visible-Air design.