Nike’s iconic Jumpman logo is designed to make Air Jordan wearers believe they can fly—or at least jump—like the brand’s namesake, NBA legend Michael Jordan. But the sight of Jordan’s airborne silhouette on shoes, shirts and storefronts never fails to bring the spirits of Jacobus “Co” Rentmeester crashing down to Earth.
“I see it at least 10 times a day,” the 88-year-old photographer told ADWEEK, adding that the image always brings back a “painful period” in his life. That period is the subject of the new short documentary Jumpman, which recently premiered at the 2024 Tribeca Festival.
Directed by Rentmeester’s son-in-law, feature filmmaker Tom Dey, the film chronicles the now-retired cameraman’s decades-long effort to prove that he took the photograph that inspired the Air Jordan logo. He tried to make the case in court almost 10 years ago, only to see the judge dismiss it, giving Nike the win. (ADWEEK reached out to Nike for comment about the film and Rentmeester’s claims but received no reply as of press time.)
“I lost in the courts, but here we have a chance to talk to the public,” Rentmeester said of the impetus for the Jumpman film, which raises compelling questions about the ethical gray areas that can complicate the relationship between major brands and creators. “We can show them all the details, documents, letters and so forth, and let them make up their minds.”
“We hope that the film is a conversation-starter about authorship and appropriation,” added Dey, whose previous credits include Shanghai Noon and Failure to Launch. “We want other artists to be able to avoid what Co went through if at all possible.”
Taking flight
To be clear, Rentmeester isn’t claiming to have taken the image that Nike used as the direct model for the Jumpman logo. That photograph was commissioned by Nike in 1984 and snapped by Chuck Kuhn, who died in 2020. However, Dey’s film argues that Kuhn’s picture was directly modeled after Rentmeester’s own photograph of Jordan, which appeared in an Olympics-themed issue of Life magazine earlier that same year.
“I was asked to do a photo essay of athletes in outstanding situations,” recalled Rentmeester, who started his career as a photojournalist covering the Watts Riots and the Vietnam War before moving into editorial and advertising work. One of those athletes was a young Jordan, then a star player at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and on the cusp of entering the NBA draft.