Each project with Martine Rose begins from a place of emotion: “Our collaborations usually start with a feeling that Martine wants to capture and convey, and every creative decision is in service of building that feeling for the audience,” says Ben McKinnon, creative producer at International Magic.
There’s a subversive quality that extends throughout the studio’s work for Martine Rose, where a willingness to embrace uncertainty becomes visible in the final aesthetic outcome. This tension is apparent in the Nike and Martine Rose Gaming Division collaboration, for which International Magic created the campaign artwork, graphics and retail installations. The collection, which dropped in October 2025, brings the Nike and Martine Rose sporting heritage into the world of gaming. International Magic’s artwork – featured in campaign imagery and ephemera created for in-store installations – fuses the visual language of athletic campaign photography with irony-laced references to obscure 90s video game culture, creating a unique and juxtaposing visual world.
“You can’t let reality limit the direction of travel, and that’s what lends these projects a slightly uncanny feeling. It’s very out-of-time, you have a lot of futuristic elements, almost fighting with a vintage sensibility. It’s something I love about the direction, it refuses convention for its own sake,” says Connor MacDonald, design engineer at International Magic. Another project, Our Channel – launched in 2023 – is a web-based platform that broadcasts six live stations spanning style, music, film, culture and news. The aesthetic experience is a collision of pirate television, retro gaming interfaces, DIY web culture and public-access broadcasting aesthetics. Jagged 8-bit typography set in an unexpectedly soft colour palette of pale lilac, warm orange and mint green create a strange tension that feels both nostalgic and futuristic.
The interface prioritises texture, mood and cultural memory over seamlessness or optimisation. Users are presented with five fixed channels with no ability to rewind or skip content and according to Connor, “it’s a bit clunky”, and purposefully so. That friction is intentional, and International Magic wanted to design an experience that destabilises expectations, forcing the visitor to think before engaging. As Connor says, it’s “made in direct opposition to the way media is typically consumed”.
There’s something refreshing about the conviction with which International Magic approaches its collaboration with Martine Rose. It might seem counterintuitive in our uncertain times, yet International Magic embraces experimentation wholeheartedly, allowing glitches, awkwardness and contradiction to remain visible rather than smoothing them away. It’s precisely this resistance that imbues the work with texture and layered meaning, allowing ephemeral digital projects to endure.