Swooshi-Just Do It

A lot of my new online friends are beginning to visit my blog and referring to me as ‘Swooshi’. All my other friends must be wondering, who on earth is ‘Swooshi’? Well, that's my online nickname.

I thought I should explain it once and for all on my blog how I got this nickname. Most people would know I'm a sports freak, I used to play all sorts of games when I was in school. So naturally, I love sports stuff and Nike is one of my favourite brands. I remember Ah Lek used to call me Nike Seow, yah! A bit seow, at one time, everything on me were Nike, from t-shirts to shorts, shoes, socks, bags and even watches. Now, it's not so bad because I've also grown to like Adidas…hehe! My first pair of branded sports shoes was in fact a pair of Adidas Rom my dad got me when I was 12!

Anyway, back to my story. Nike has a logo in the shape of a tick and that has a name too, it's called a Swoosh. That's how my nickname came about and I chose it also because Nike uses the slogan ‘Just Do It’, my motto in life. Now this slogan wasn’t created by Nike but was stolen from a zen master many years ago, it was actually a zen teaching. I can’t register ‘Swoosh’ online so I used ‘Swooshi’ instead since ‘i’ is the same sound as my middle name ‘yee’. So now you all know how ‘Swooshi’ came about.

There’s also some history behind the creation of the Swoosh. It was designed in 1971 by Carolyn Davidson who was then a fresh graphic design graduate. She was paid only US$35 for that job but did continue to design for the sports company subsequently. In 1983, the Nike founder, Phil Knight rewarded her with some Nike stock options and she claimed “The stock has split three times since I received it so I can definitely say that I have been well compensated for my design."

That designer has since retired and is now a grandmother who spends her time pursuing varied interests and doing voluntary work which she could not do while running her one-woman business. Once a week she will volunteer at the Ronald McDonald House at Emanuel Hospital.

Quite an inspiring story huh? If you want to read the whole history, here’s the link: http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=5&item=origin