#030620: XO2 Freelance/Athleisure Lifestyle Footwear Design
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February 2001 -March 2001
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An unknown licensing company/XO2
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Freelance design work
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Designing a new sneaker tooling with few uppers.
I did this freelance job during my internship where I met many professionals working the business sector of footwear industry. One day I was asked by a sales manager of the company if I was interested in designing a sneaker for a startup company. Having an opportunity to design a complete new sneaker was a dream come true!
The brief I got for this design is basically requesting a style similar to Nike Air Force 1 but with a twist. In fact, the brief for this design is so broad that I really didn’t know what it meant. However, I started the drawing without asking much of questions. I was sure something interesting wold surface once I start sketching, which is one of the things that I leant in studying design, to let the pen do most of the talking.
I started with a general Nike Air Force 1 silhouette, cut a curve here, add a little line there. Something interesting did surface. The bottom tooling design is pretty much based on a cup sole construction like Nike Air Force 1. The horizontal lines breaking the profile is not something I planned other than the result of a random doodling and I like the look. That’s it!
The real challenge without a workable brief is how to put a design together. I had to relay on my design knowledge and best educated guess for my own design. I sketched different ways of reduce weight of outsole TPR by applying two or more small pieces instead of one full piece of TPR. At this point I still wasn’t sure how exactly the construction of this shoe should be.
During my research for inspiration I saw this Nike Air Force 1 that the midsole is wrap in the same material as the upper, I thought it was interesting and different. Maybe I could experiment this construction on this design. I sketched out initial concept of this construction that went into the final product.
Event though I am certain the final product could be so much better if I lead the development. However, I am still glad to see that they adopted majority of my design. After all this is my very first fully designed commercial footwear. Please let me know if or what you like and not like about this concept. Unfortunately many photos of this shoe were unable to be retrieved from a damaged hard drive. The only image I have of this design is the image shown which I scanned off a hard copy page from my old physical portfolio.
