From “Custom build your shoes”
to a top bar without it

In July 1998 nike.com is a small white page. Teal boxes on the left hold plain blue links: basketball, running, soccer, training, outdoor, then training tips, inline skates, open court and girls in the game. The only big picture is a soccer drill with a round badge in the corner, and the photo's alt text reads Engineered for Women Athletes.

The small print is the 1998 web in miniature. One tile's alt text is Fun Police. There's a link to jumpman23.com and an invitation to Talk to us.

Company news lives on another site, NikeBiz.com, with (corporate info) written next to it in case anyone wondered. The footer has an E-mail policy and © NIKE, Inc. 1998 All Rights Reserved.

Nothing on this page sells a shoe. Nike dates the launch of its online store to 1999.^[1]

By June 2000 the page has turned black and become a shop. The wordmark reads nike.com STORE, with U.S. sales only under it, next to four product photos: a running shoe, sunglasses, a top and yellow shorts. Down the left run ask nike, talk to us, retailer locator and more nike sites. A row of photos is labeled JOIN THE DEBATE, NIKEFOOTBALL.COM and CHARLES BARKLEY NETWORK, and an orange line shouts PRESTO IS HERE!

In the top right corner is the box this story follows: NIKEiD, CUSTOM BUILD YOUR SHOES. Nike later dated both the online store and www.nikeid.com to 1999.^[1][2]

The company's 1999 annual report was frank about where all this was going. OK, everyone who knows how e-commerce is going to work out raise your hand? it asked, and a few lines later admitted, Frankly, we're not sure how this is all going to fall out either.^[3] The page's footer credits NIKE Retail Services Inc. 1999,2000, and one of its button images is named how_site_runs_best.

In June 2001 the store gives way to a gateway. A small panel floats on gray: a white Swoosh on an orange square, a close-up of a shoe, and a directory that starts with North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America and lists countries and languages under each. The image names in the code are shoes of the moment: Hyper Flight, Presto, Nike Shox BB4.

The June 2002 capture lives at a new address, main.html, and carries the same image names in the same order. Same shoe, same directory, one year apart.

The orange square holds the logo with the oldest story on the page. Nike's archive says Carolyn Davidson sent Phil Knight an invoice for $35 for the Swoosh in 1971. Knight's first review: Well, I don’t love it, he told her, but it will grow on me. The first shoe to wear it was a football boot called “the Nike”, sold for $16.95.^[4]

From 2003 to 2006 nike.com opens on a gray gateway under /g1/. The Swoosh is orange now, top right, and one photograph fills a small panel in the middle: a shoe close-up in June 2003, two runners on a beach in 2004, a colorful sports montage in 2005, players on a pitch in 2006.

The code explains how the photo can change from one visit to the next. In 2003 the page writes its picture as bg_"+randomNumberGenerator(3)+".jpg: one of three backgrounds, picked at random on each load. By 2006 the line says bg2_ and picks one of five. So each capture here is one draw from a small deck. The folder those pictures come from is called noflash.

In November 2008 the US homepage has a grass-field background, a black rectangle where the Flash feature should be, and nine tiles beneath it. Their alt texts pair each name with a slogan: Nike Store - Shop Online, NikeiD - Customize Yours, Nike+ - Track Your Runs, Nike Women - For Girls in Sport, Nike Basketball - This is Our Game.

The custom-shoe tile is second in the top row in all four of our captures from 2008 to 2011. In 2009 it reads CUSTOMIZE NOW, beside a Nike+ tile for the HUMAN RACE 10K.

Behind that tile, NIKEiD had just been rebuilt. In August 2008 Nike called it the most comprehensive redesign since www.nikeid.com launched in 1999. A new Design Search showed other people's designs from around the world. At NIKEiD.STUDIO locations you could book a 45-minute private session with a NIKEiD design consultant, and during the Beijing Olympics you could design gear in the colors of the country you supported.^[2]

The 2008 code also holds a menu that doesn't render in the replay. Its first three items are SHOP, CUSTOMIZE and SITES, and the sites list runs longer than nine tiles could hold, with Ninemillion.org, LiveStrong, SPARQ and Timing/Watches among them. By 2010 the second item says NIKEiD.

The June 2012 capture never reaches a homepage. The US address we tried redirects to a region chooser: an orange Swoosh, the word NIKE.COM and a gray panel of fourteen languages, from English and Español to Polski, Česky, Türkçe, 日本語 and ไทย. The 2001 directory is back, only longer.

By September 2013 the US homepage fills the whole window, and its top bar reads MEN, WOMEN, KIDS, SPORTS, NIKE SPORTSWEAR, NIKEiD, then the Jumpman logo. The custom-shoe service has moved from a tile to the main navigation you can see. The hero says INTRODUCING NIKE TECH PACK, Engineered to the exact specifications of championship athletes.

Under GET THE LATEST FROM NIKE are four tiles, two of them NIKE+ FUELBAND and NIKE FREE FLYKNIT. Nike's 2012 shareholder letter had introduced both: the FuelBand, and a way to make most of a shoe upper with a single piece of thread.^[5] The lookbook tile promises 17 pro athletes captured on the move wearing Nike Tech Fleece.

By March 2014 one word in the top bar has changed. NIKEiD becomes CUSTOMIZE. The service keeps its name one level down, where the menu says Customize with NIKEiD, but the bar now names the thing you do. The hero is a basketball shoe: KOBE 9 ELITE, 'INSPIRATION', The art of light, strong and fast.

Then the page goes black and white. 2015 is a monochrome Tech Fleece campaign, and the browser title becomes Nike. Just Do It.. Nike.com, with two full stops. By 2016 it's down to one.

The 2016 hero asks you to GET THE NEW NIKE+ APP, Everything you want from Nike, all in one place. In 2017 a NIKE LUNAREPIC FLYKNIT 2 takes the screen, and the menu code lists a SNKRS LAUNCH CALENDAR. Engadget had described SNKRS in 2015 as an app that puts a sneaker shop on your phone (reported).^[6]

Through all four captures, CUSTOMIZE keeps its place in the top bar, next to MEN, WOMEN, BOYS and GIRLS from 2015 to 2017.

In September 2018 the hero is a single photograph in orange haze, a player diving after a ball, and the line under it reads It’s Only A Crazy Dream Until You Do It. A slim bar above promises 30-DAY FREE RETURNS and Wear it, test it, keep what you like. The top bar is MEN, WOMEN, KIDS, CUSTOMIZE, FAVORITES.

June 2019 celebrates a basketball title: START WITH A DREAM. FINISH WITH A RING. and Celebrate the Toronto Raptors' first ever NBA Championship. CUSTOMIZE is still in the top bar, and the code of the closed menu under it lists NIKE BY YOU NEW RELEASES. Somewhere between our 2017 and 2019 captures, NIKEiD became Nike By You.

The Nike By You page that month ran the same story. Its headline is CHAMPIONSHIP BY YOU, with Celebrate the 2018-19 NBA season with an exclusive Air Force 1 colorway. Below is a row of Nike Air Force 1 Low NBA By You shoes at $120 each, every one tagged Customize. The page's main picture is blank in this capture.

In June 2020 the hero is a black banner with white letters: BLACK LIVES MATTER, and under it, How Nike Stands Up for Equality. The strip above offers Free Shipping & 60-Day Free Returns with a Join Now link. The top bar reads NEW RELEASES, MEN, WOMEN, KIDS, CUSTOMIZE, SALE, and the menu's code lists BASKETBALL BY YOU.

A year later the mood is lighter. June 2021 is an illustrated Father's Day campaign, DAD'S STILL GOT IT, and the menu's code lists Gifts for Dad. The top bar has dropped its capitals: New Releases, Men, Women, Kids, Customize, Sale. It is the last of our captures with Customize up there.

In June 2022 the top bar is New & Featured, Men, Women, Kids, Sale. Customize has left it. The word still exists one level down: the menu's code lists Customize and Customize with Nike by You among the shoe links. The hero is a black Air Max on a pink and orange gradient, Summer Sale: New Styles Added, under a strip that says Free Shipping + Returns, Free Membership, Exclusive Products.

In our June 2023 capture, Accessories appears between Kids and Sale. The hero is a green banner, SAVE UP TO 50%, above a row titled Always Iconic.

The service itself was still there. In January 2022 the Nike By You page leads with a customized Air Max, says Put More You In Your Shoe and calls itself Nike’s co-creation service. A How To Nike By You section put questions to Nike designers: How do I pop a color? Can I liven up neutrals?

Our last usable capture, from September 2025, is a blue campaign with a giant white sneaker and LEGO figures around it: PRIMED TO SHINE, The Dunk Low x LEGO® Collection drops 9.1. The top bar has six words, and above it sit Find a Store, Help, Join Us and Sign In. In the capture's code the words survive only as data: an interface label Customize and a button text Shop Nike By You for a block that isn't on our screenshot.

The service did not close. Nike By You still lives at nike.com/nike-by-you, and in October 2026 it invites you to add a personal ID, any combination of letters and numbers that makes sense to you, like a nickname, a mantra, or a phrase you love.^[7]

In June 2000 a corner of the homepage said CUSTOM BUILD YOUR SHOES. In October 2026 you still can. You just have to know where to look.

2000 · Custom build your shoes2000 · Then2025 · Primed to Shine2025 · Capture

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