DIY: Keds Offer New Biz Opportunities for Budding Designers

“Express exactly who you are”— it may as well be the mantra of the decade, as the blogosphere exploded as an outlet for self-expression and fashion lost all sense of seasons and rules as people made trends their own. Keds is getting in on the self-expression, “DIY” (Do It Yourself) trend with their new Design Your Own site, part of the Keds Collective.

Declared to be the place “where fashion, commerce and creativity converge,” the Keds Collective includes Keds collaborations with designers and big names in art, music and pop culture. The coolest part: through the Keds Collective you can also design, buy and sell your own sneakers, thus expressing, as the site says, "exactly who you are."

You start with a blank white shoe, either a classic lace-up, a slip-on sneaker, or a more delicate “flat” (each $60). You can then pick colors for the entire shoe bit by bit, from the tongue to the stitching to the rubber sole to the color of the little plastic rings that go around the holes for shoelaces.

It’s easy to go overboard, but also easy to change your mind and click undo. Even if you don’t end up buying your ridiculous 30-color kicks, it’s a fun new Internet distraction for the design-inclined.

But for those who do have a keen design eye, this is a cool new platform not only for designing, but also for selling: After creating your custom sneaker, you can click "Post for sale" and Keds will direct you to Zazzle.com, an online retailer for selling and buying user-created merchandise. Go color-crazy- and maybe make some cash!