Established in 2004, Pointer is a footwear company like no other. In a market that's awash with 'borrowed' styles, meaningless limited editions and low quality, Pointer stands out as a brand that stays true to its own ideas. Their entire approach, from shoe design to art direction, reflects a unique vision that is based on original designs, personal taste and a close-knit family of artists and designers. We sat down with Gareth Skewis who heads the team from their London office to find out more about Pointer and its upcoming products and projects...

Interview by Will.

How did Pointer begin, who is the company made up of and what were your previous backgrounds?

Pointer is really mainly made of the following people:

Myself, Gareth Skewis, I guess you could say I come from a skateboarding and shoe nerd background with a good spoonful of indie / mid-90s hip hop thrown into the mix.  Work-wise I used to work for Slam City Skates and then Silas and Maria. Rose Choules, who is the head designer and comes from an art and shoe design background. Playarea, which is made up of Matt Fowler who comes from a skateboarding and graphic design back ground and Hannah Draper who comes from an art and craft and graphic design background.

Then you have the artists we work with who are French, Marcus Oakley, Jethro Haynes, Nik Taylor and Hudson-Powell. We have a really tight group of artists who we work with and have known and socialized with for years. 

That is really who makes up Pointer.

Pointer started as all the above mentioned people really wanting to create a footwear brand that had a little bit more to it then just being another sportswear/footwear/fashion/streetwear (god everything has to have a nice cute little title these days) brand trying to market itself to all the hipsters and trainer nerds. It was really important to all of us not only from a footwear design point of view to do something that looked very Pointer and stood out from the rest but also to have a brand that stood out from the pack for its art direction, sense of not taking it self too seriously and trying to do something different. The footwear market/industry to me seems a lot like stand-in session musicians. If you need a good rhythm jazz guitarist there is one there, if you need a mid 80's hair metal style drummer you can get it. It all seems a bit faceless to me with people just chasing what they feel is the right way to go using borrowed talent. I really wanted Pointer to have a much more band feel to it, we have the art direction, the footwear designer, Yacht Rock from Marcus Oakley and so on. The point being that we wanted Pointer to have a much more personal feel to it.   

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