Ready for the Wild: Los York’s Campaign for HOKA’s Mafate X

Ready for the Wild: Precision Meets the Unpredictable in Los York’s Campaign for HOKA’s Mafate X

HOKA’s Mafate X is a beast of a shoe. Built for trail running and pushing into uncharted territory, it’s engineered to withstand the elements, elevation, and the unexpected. For its launch, the Mafate X needed a campaign that could match its bold energy—so HOKA partnered with Los Angeles-based creative company Los York to bring that vision to life.

The campaign took its inspiration from the raw terrains where the shoe is meant to thrive. “The campaign was rooted in the rugged, remote landscapes of South Africa, and we wanted a system that felt like it belonged there. The rawness of trail running, the dirt, the altitude, and the chaos of the elements inspired us to create a visual world that could hold that energy without getting messy,” Creative Director Michael Mavian tells us. “Our research spanned everything from topographical mapping to archival outdoor gear manuals. We studied how information is layered and organised on race bibs, GPS interfaces, and geological maps and translated that into a design language that felt both visceral and precise.”

Central to the campaign was a visual tension between the unpredictable nature of the terrain and the clean, structured design system layered over it. “Every graphic element, from typography to grid to linework, was designed to feel purposeful. That’s what gives the system its tension,” says Mavian. The challenge was to strike a balance—letting the visual identity reflect the rugged environments while also creating a cohesive, brand-aligned foundation the entire campaign could rest on.

The modular design system was built to be flexible, capable of adapting across a wide range of formats—film, social, retail, and editorial. As Mavian explains, that adaptability was essential: “because the campaign needed to live across a lot of surfaces (films, social, retail, editorial). We established core building blocks – typographic scales, texture overlays, alignment logic – that could adapt without losing cohesion. That gave us room to be expressive in the details while maintaining a strong throughline across the campaign.”

Visually, the campaign also aimed to mirror the technical sophistication of the product itself. “Mafate X is a piece of engineering as much as a piece of gear. So we wanted a graphic language that conveyed performance, not just visually, but intellectually,” notes Mavian. “We used linework, indexing systems, and micro typographic annotations that felt lifted from technical documents or mapping interfaces. These elements created a sense of accuracy and depth. It gave the campaign layers to unpack, rewarding repeat viewing and speaking directly to gearheads and design-literate consumers alike.”

The work is anchored by striking typography and a standout color treatment—centered around the campaign’s bold “Far Out” tagline. That signature orange hue was a deliberate choice. “We wanted a colour that felt elemental but not overly synthetic. This orange had a dual quality. It felt like a heat signature in the wild, but also echoed high-vis utility gear. It brought warmth and urgency to the system and played beautifully against the natural palette of the South African landscape. It became both a spotlight and a signal. Instantly ownable. Hard to miss,” says Mavian.

In the end, the campaign captures what Mafate X was built for: going farther, braving the unpredictable, and standing strong in the wild. It’s a meeting of extremes—where design is both deliberate and untamed, and performance speaks through every pixel.