Sketch-Fu: Men's Footwear

Yes, I understand. Interestingly, as a tool that allows you to display the “behavior” of lines or 2D drawings on a 3D object, and from there make design decisions. I see it as a way to save time in sketches. You can find the path of a line, and if it is an element that match into the design concept, use that and maybe combine it with any other design line. It’s not about replacing things in the footwear design process, is an alternative tool.

Is that so?

R’

You always seem to come off so harsh… Do you even know what real innovation is? Take for instance your SKORA shoe. Not much more than New Balance Minimus. Prove me wrong. They look cool but seen that bought that. I’ll post up something that I think is innovative in shoe wear later tonight after I complete manufacturing for today " maybe tomorrow" and you will most definitely find something wrong and have something negative to say if you bother to say anything. You remind me of why it’s hard to share work with people who don’t understand what you are doing so they respond with a seemingly authoritative point of view which is always negative and condescending.

ScoRo5 You ROCK! I loved your piece on “MODO” space suit exploration. As far as a visual tool for the aesthetics of the item this is truly inspirational and you even got the proportions of the shoe correct :wink:

As a viewer of this fantastic forum I would like to say welcome and I hope to see you continue to infiltrate the shoe design scene. Remember most of these guys consider themselves to be shoe engineers that need to tell a story that is totally irrelevant to what a shoe needs to do (function) which aligns them more with fashion design IMHO.

That’s right I said it!

flame away,
human

Richard,

I should have been more specific. This project is about style and fashion, not function. Used simply as a way to explore new aesthetic graphic directions this process has value. Of course in the hands of an experienced designer like yourself I’m sure the functional issues could be overcome. Many times in my career while working in other industries a strong visual image can be used as a good point to start driving the discussion of new technologies to support the functional hurdles many of these studies present. This experiment is about graphic design applied to the shoe form without regard for the specifics of modern day shoe construction, with the exception that the form of the shoe is more accurate than a hand drawn sketch and that it respects the assembly of platform to upper.

These studies do no start life as a function first concept, they are all about shapes, colors, textures and being able to see those wrapped on a real shoe form in real time and then quickly rendered in a photo-real look in multiple views and variations all while you are out having lunch or asleep. If you get no happy accidents, no big deal the time invested was almost nothing, but should you get a decent success rate wouldn’t that add value to the process? There are some aesthetics now that can be manufactured but we never invest the time to explore them because the labor investment required to draw and render them in a traditional fashion is too great. So those new and potentially innovative “looks” are never explored. These tools can help unlock some of those directions.

Victordcantu,
Correct.

Humancargo,
Thanks. I’ll share more along the way. In fact I share something educational every Friday here on my You Tube channel. http://www.youtube.com/user/scottrobertsondesign
Getting ready to post this week’s tutorial on colorizing a greyscale sketch in Photoshop and doing a weathering pass.

Human,

I didn’t mean to come off as harsh, and don’t think I particularly normally do so. Maybe I can blame the abbreviated post on the iPhone I banged it out on, perhaps too quickly.

Rather than bashing the concept or exploration, I was just looking for a little clarification and pointing out the difference between what I consider purposeful design and throwing randome shapes and colors on a wall to see what happens. That might have some value as inspiration, but I guess I wouldn’t call it design.

ScRo5,

Thanks for the clarification on your intended purpose. I have no problem with fashion specific design, and of course not all footwear is technical or performance. I’ve done fashion and lifestyle footwear as well, BTW. I suppose to come across 1 happy accident that serves as inspiration in 700 auto generated variations is worth something “for free”, but then again, value is also judged by the quality of the result and the effort building the system that generates that result.

As said, an interesting experiment in generative programming I guess, maybe I’m just missing the point.

R

ScoRo5 - I have to totally agree with Richard, that the selection page from your 700+ renderings are nothing more than a play on a digital program. Aesthetic beauty has been thrown out of the window and considered proportion and form is non existent. Lots of lines and nothing more.

Humancargo - Where do i start? Richard is criticizing those drawings because they deserve it. Absolutely no thought or consideration towards how the shoe would be assembled or produced. If i had a junior in for an interview and they produced those drawings, it’d be a short meeting i’m afraid. However the best bit is your signature “simplicity is the essence of a clean line and form will always follow function”. I think you need to explain your philosophy on design to dear old ScoRo5 over there.

cheers

Wow!

Just WOW!

human

Thanks Scott,
I am absolutely a HUGE fan of your work in its totality! I will be sure to bookmark and follow.
I hope you have a wonderful weekend,
human

Rkuchinsky, Nordmade, maybe we have not seen the essence of the proposal. I think it is basically applicable to designs focused on running shoes (example), there are designs that require (because of its target) designs with much saturation lines (commonly wavy) and a collage of shapes and colors (children’s shoes), that is tedious to do because almost no range to innovate in that style.

I think it’s something like projecting an image on a last, we can follow a line visually appealing, and we can use if we need it.

Scott,

I highly respect your skills in design and rendering. Wish I had those visualization abilities.

Maybe it’s just an aesthetic thing, but the results of the experiment don’t seem particularly useful. Perhaps you could tweak the generative algorithm to start with basic conventional shoe parts and modify from there. For example there are several standard patterns for toecaps, eyestays, heel overlays, etc. just random graphics don’t really apply to footwear much except maybe cheap kids shoes.

R

its just some sketches for crying out loud dang…

Good to see this is sparking some debate.

I personally find this technique that Scott is using as a great spring board. Its a different take on finding inspiration. Some people look at nature, others at fashion, some look at cars, some look at the competitive landscape, and so on. In short when coming up with a design, there’s usually an inspirational imagery phase that comes in.

This texture bomb approach I think is just another great way to spark some ideas. I can look at 20 images that Scott put up and get a few details and build concepts off that. The designs that Scott is showing arent meant to be a footwear design. But as a catalyst to the design process.

I don’t wanna take Sketch Fu too far off topic. But I see Scott’s explorations similar to this.

Random lines used to inspire a design. (Although the end result would be far more removed from the inspiration.)

As my first boss used to say “Less talky more sketchy.”

Lets not over analyze someone who is just having fun and sharing. Instead lets contribute alternatives visually.

On a related tip, I know a pretty well known designer at Nike who used to cut out silhouette of a shoe in a similar way. He would put different images from magazines under the template, photocopy it, and then sketch over top of that to see where it took him.

Another designer there has a template cut out of MDF. He would close his eyes and draw random lines within the template, then try to work that into a design.

some pretty famous shoes came from these two guys.

Good morning people

Passion always turns to argument when someone drops an innovative way to explore our favorite subject: footwear.

There are no boundaries in exploration, even if science and numbers are considered in footwear making, our subject is still driven by empiric approach, feelings, intuition, weak signals.

I am in favor of those attempts to innovate, way more than watching the incremental drawings, that are trying to figure out the next instant steps of our industry.

Creativity has no standard. Exploration has no rules, sco ro 5, keep on challenging the routine, stay fresh and naive when you explore.
Serenpidity opens people minds and breaks the comfort zones.
Thank you very much for sharing.

To each their own. Sketches are good. Talk is also good. This is a discussion forum.

R

Back on topic. Just a doodle. It has been too long since I’ve thrown a little sketch in the mix. A quick sketch before I close up the studio for the weekend.nothing too special.

Hey guys!

First post here on the site. I thought I would show something simple right now. :smiley:

Welcome Alex, nice simple design. Try giving the shoe a little “toe spring”, the curvature of the outsole upward toward the front of the shoe. Almost all shoes have at least a few mm of toe spring:

http://www.oliversweeney.com/ShoeGlossary.html?article=290#popup

yo - thanks for the tip! I got a little critique from a friend earlier and tried it on another shoe. better?