TOM NGUYEN - PLAYLAB, INC. PORTFOLIO
Nike Sportswear: City of Neighborhoods(2024)
Over 40 Years ago Nike introduced the Dunk and created hyper localized color combos for the sneaker based off of college basketball teams. In 2024 Nike wanted to bring back that feeling with a new dunk program basing shoes off of major cities and Philadelphia was the first. The Nike Sportswear team flew out to Philly and met up to brainstorm ideas for what this shoe would look like. After those meetings I got asked to be apart of the campaign with the likes of those who represent Philly including Jimmy Gorecki, BJ Betts, Frank Cooke and more.
Public Impression(2021-2025)
Built an independent BMX apparel brand from the ground up, blending East Coast street riding with high-quality, American made garments. Directed all creative and apparel production.
Interlaced Magazine(2018)
Backcheck(2021)
Another lockdown baby born from boredom. Backcheck is BMX legend Chase DeHart’s brain child I helped bring to life while his corporate sponsors put their projects on hold in 2020.
A$AP FERG- Plain Jane(2017)
What was supposed to be a day as background talent essentially turned into creative directing a whole music video around NYC. A$AP Ferg saw me filming BMX while his crew was panicking because they forgot to bring their batteries on location, so we decided to bring the DIY ethos to his video which ended up being shot mostly on my VX2100s and film cameras.
Lil Uzi Vert in Manhattan(2021)
It’s not every day you get Facetimed from a random number and it ends up being Lil Uzi Vert telling you to come out to New York so he can learn how to ride BMX. Moments like this need a key player from the city involved so it was only right to make sure Nigel Sylvester pulled up to tie everything together.
Highsnobiety & I Know Nigo(2021-2024)
After the photos got posted to my Instagram they ended up getting picked up by the likes of Highsnobiety, LilJupiterr, HiddenNY, Samutaro and eventually I got contacted by VictorVictor for publishing rights for the I Know Nigo book.
SAMUTARO
Samutaro also took a liking to the photos of Uzi riding around Manhattan and after that we’ve spent countless hours talking about BMX’s role in hip hop culture over the last decade which led to assisting him on writing pieces over the years and the creation of #SamutaroBiking.
ASAAD: ARE WE… & Off- - - White Sessions(2020)
Some artists spend months if not years developing a sound and image for a project, with Asaad it’s all in the moment. A couple Working On Dying studio sessions turned into making music videos featuring the likes of John Ross, Yung Kayo and Bloody Osiris to documenting studio sessions for Virgil Abloh’s collaborative mixtape.
Jordan Brand: Bike Air-Brick by Brick(2025)
Brain Nadav of Lapstone and Hammer was 1 of 5 shops in the country asked by Jordan to create their own activation for the release of the Brick by Brick 4s. He tapped in with me to figure out how to pay respect and connect this release to real BMX riders.
Cult Crew x Montana Colors(2023)
This was a fun side quest merging BMX and graffiti culture. Brought Cult together with Montana to design a bike and showcase different ways to use their new colors.
Additional Work
If you’ve made it this far thank you for taking the time to have a look at some of the things I’ve done and captured over the years<3