I decided not all creative jobs are created equal. So though I worked my ass off to get a bfa in 3D character animation, I decided I wanted more. I thought maybe graphic design would give me the hands on approach I am looking for so I got a job in that. Nope didn’t do it. So I am back to square one, my obsession with shoes. I look at them everywhere I go, always have. Critiquing their styling craftmanship and details. I have always appreciated design, so much I will often go without a product until I find the perfect design or at least one I like for the meantime. So I think I will be enrolling at a university to acquire a Masters in ID and focus on footwear.
Question is- How did you ( current footwear designer ) decide upon this career ? Are you happy? Or are you designing shoes just to pay the bills - hoping one day to design something else? If you had it all to do over what would you change in your education/portfolio ? Or should I just give it up and get a job mcJob because all the jobs are going to asia?
Sauntered vaguely into it literally, had an offer while I was in school to do some work as a freelancer, later the company made me an offer the weekend before I graduated. Since the studio was by the beach the environment was cool and the product and money was sick, I took it.
The pay is really good, and its really the thing that keeps me doing it. Am I happy? I’m content, but I’m not sure I want to be a shoe dog for the rest of my life.
Nope. I learned more about the realities of Design by working in footwear, and in some ways it has tempered the idealism that school gave me. I would not mind getting back to that idealism soon. I had offers from an international consumer electonics company, a Bay area consultancy and a movie studio within a few weeks of graduation, and (I chose footwear) so I guess my portfolio was well tuned
Footwear design jobs aren’t going to Asia, the manufacturing and development are but the design isn’t. There will always be a need for well designed footwear, it has one of the biggest profit margins of any consumer product and is one of the most interactive products needed, and the demand is insatiable.
A MID would be beneficial If you want to spend another few tens of thousands. But if you have the ability as a charcter animator then you should be able to draw, If you have a backround in graphics you should have a good sense of balance and color. If you can express your ideas visually and represent 3 dimensions in a 2-D form, you’re there. Why wait. If your looking for “entry level” footwear designer its about the ideas and how you communicate them, not the footwear in a portfolio.
My education was in trans and product design. After working at a trans consultancy for a year, and then 4 years in a product consultancy I caught the footwear bug. Actually i think I always had but it was at that time I was diagnosed.
It’s a pretty rockin job for me for these reasons.
- things come to market a lot faster than in cars.
- you get to work on 10-20 shoes a year versus 1 car every 4 years.
- people concect with shoes way more than a tea kettle, and since they wear them for a year or so, instead of driving them for 5 years, they tend to take more risks in their buying habits.
- design is pretty well appreciated in a lot of footwear companies (not all watch out)
- you get to see your work all over the street and in magazines, and on TV (ahh the glory)
- pay is good
- most footwear designers get awesome work travel. In the part year I’ve been to Paris, London, NYC twice, LA twice, Miami twice, and Korea. dope.
some footwear environments are more ideal than others and the philosophies varry greatly from company to company, from high fashion, to street fashion, and from functional innovation and performance to down and dirty shoe biz making money. So you can find a place that fits you. The competition in the industry ensures a lot of jobs and a constant quest for newness.
THanks for the reassurance! Now, am I cheating myself by going to a state university and saving 40 to 50k? My bfa was well over 100k. So I just can’t convince myself that I will really get that much better of a portfolio. I think I can push myself to produce a cutting edge portfolio no matter what. I have heard your oppinions on bs vs bfa…and your points are totally valid towards foundation of art principles/drawing. But what about masters. I can draw- well. color theory out the ying yang- so much art history i actually think i had more art history classes than my concentration. so what do you think? is it a prestige thing? will a say …fortune 500 rather hire a ritzy design school grad with a hot portfolio or a state university grad with a hot portfolio.
thanks again for your replies
I think as long as you have the skils it doesn’t really matter, my friend.
Where I went to school (undergrad) the grad students, for the most part, where miserable. But I attribute that to the fact that most of them did not have undergrads in any art related field. I remember some of them had gone to pre-law, pre med, BS in anthropology or sociology. Which are all great knowledge bases to have, but to have NO training in the arts and be accepted into a graduate program is a crime. I wouldnt enter med-school with a BFA, I would have to go back and take pre med right?
So dude, it sounds like you can produce the goods, so a MA might be totally appropriate, since you are redirecting your skills, not building them from scratch.
Honesty, you could save the money, and stay home for a year, research, read, and draw your ass off and give youself your own MA. There are plenty of resources to learn from. here are a few awesome ones…
http://www.drawthrough.com/tutorials/index.html
http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/analog_library.html
http://www.cardesignnews.com/studio/tutorials/index.php
uhm…bling
well i should just research and produce an extremly strong protfolio on my own. the thing is i work better with competition- if you know what i mean…that support, reinforcement and competition that you get in a learning enviroment might be what i need to stay motivated to keep churning out the fresh ideas. may sound lame but that was my main reason to go for my masters. that and some people (my family) are caught up in degrees…so if i’m in school that somehow justifies my drawing all day.
oh and Yo may I ask which company you speak of when you said " 4) design is pretty well appreciated in a lot of footwear companies (not all watch out) "
oh one more thing … whats the deal with all the want ads for footwear designers who must have experience with “overseas factories” I realize that is where the majority of footwear is manufactured. What is involved in that process? material selection and approval of the prototype? being polite? is it really something you need to have experience in if you have say 3 years of freelance under your belt?—i know i’m getting too involved in the details and the important part is the actual design- but i am curious in the process also- please lemme know about a website or something where i can get the details and i will cease the harrassment
“being polite,…” yeah actually it has a lot to do with it…No Its important to have that experience under your belt IMHO so when yo uget sent overseas, you actaully are professional and get work done and don’t always go “to the second place” at 3 AM on a work night with the factory owner,…
seriously I’m not sure if you really need it as opposed to it being a mitigating factor when you are interviewed.
Some places call it footwear “design”, but its actually “line building” where you go to a factory(ies) and pick ready made designs and ready made tooling, slap on your logos and call it a design and merchandize it into a line… In that case overseas experience is incredibly useful because yor are not only “designing” but you are negotiating pricing and costs and you spend a few weeks over there at a time. Also some companies use as the designers as stylists who crank out designs and only to make things look good, but don’t bring any functional benefit to the table. (ie Skechers. …did I say that out loud?)
seriously I’d just start drawing shoes. Pick a performance direction (the why of the design) and draw. Find a cool material and design a shoe with it. Create an alternative to lacing and tightening a shoe and then design a shoe around that function. Design a three point sandal. Design a comfortable dress shoe focusing on the finish detailing.
A collegue of mine was a fine artist begore being was hired by Nike. I know another guy who was a skateboard graphic designer who sauntered into a footwear design job and never left. Point is you don’t need an MFA, but if you want the input and go get an MFA, don’t be suprised if the input is more intellectualized than you are expecting. In some cases they wont critique the design, they’ll critique the intent and the meaning, which may or may not be benficial.
well how abundant are freelance footwear jobs on average? i guess i’m probably asking the wrong people since you both have steady jobs, but I would assume you have heard people talk if you frequent these forums. I honestly couldn’t find much about it on here- as far as footwear.
correct me if i’m wrong here…from what you are saying is that even with the current economy I could break into footwear without a degree in ID -if i have skill? wouldn’t an employer think they could pay me less because I don’t have a degree in the field and wouldn’t i be looked over by headhunters because I don’t have a degree in ID. sorry i’m being stubborn here, but this is a big deal and i like to think of things from all angles. I have made impulsive decisions before regarding education and have had to deal. I don’t want to make the same mistake. i am really pounding this issue because i’m about to apply for spring enrollment in ID. I had also hoped to do freelance work while in school.
…and you won’t find out much without talking to some one who is actaully doing it. its not like we advertise in the local papers. Its a narrow focus, and freelance is available: if you can find it and/or sell yourself as a competent employee/freelancer.
yes, if you are shoping yourself to the right person. If you can communicate that you have the necessary skillset to do the job. If you have the ability to display an intent to learn. I never said it was easy but its definately possible and easier than trying to get in an ID consultancy without an ID degree.
IMO your reason to get an ID degree should be: “to get a degree in industrial Design” not “to get a job in footwear.”
Yes a ID degree will help you get a foot in the door (pardon the pun). An ID degree may help you get better pay, but then again it may not; and no, You will find very few freelance oppourtunities available to you in footwear with zero experience designing footwear. Finally no headhunter will consider you with out a track record in footwear or design (pun intended)
There is not a yellow brick road to footwear design, (again, no pun intended) nor is their a formula for it. For some reason Nike’s tag line really pops into my head at this moment: Just Do It.
There are a lot of freelancers out there and Relativ is correct in stating that you are unlikely to find them here. It is a very tight knit community. I know a few freelancers out there who know pretty much everyone in the biz. Fire me an email and I’ll hook you with some names.
Also these guys sometimes post some footwear jobs: http://www.footwearnews.com/
Of coures there are none on there right now, making me look like a liar, but when one does come up, contact them. You won’t get the job with no experience, but you might be able to weazle some freelance or at least some spec work. Honestly, it’s not rocket science, it rubber, foam, leather, and mesh all stitched and glued together.
damn… forgot to log in above, what a JV move
There are a lot of freelancers out there and Relativ is correct in stating that you are unlikely to find them here. It is a very tight knit community. I know a few freelancers out there who know pretty much everyone in the biz. Fire me an email and I’ll hook you with some names.
Also these guys sometimes post some footwear jobs: http://www.footwearnews.com/
Of coures there are none on there right now, making me look like a liar, but when one does come up, contact them. You won’t get the job with no experience, but you might be able to weazle some freelance or at least some spec work. Honestly, it’s not rocket science, it rubber, foam, leather, and mesh all stitched and glued together.
thanks for your input.
what do the acronyms IMHO and IMO mean?
Is it true that the future of shoe design is in the fuctionality rather than aesthetics? For instance, Adidas shoe design and research is done by the university of calgary’s human performance lab. Case in point, the new shoes of Becham were designed and developed by that lab - a doctor in biomechanics. Are so called industrial or artistic shoe designers going to be obsulete in the future?
industrial designers conceptualize and visualize the functional innovations.
Bio Mech labs prove that innovation out. The only reason they are using the Uni is because Adi doesn’t have the in house capability to go to that level, Nike does and every major innovation that runs through the company goes through rigorous testing with our in house team. The facility is insane in its capabilities.
So I guess the answer would be a huge NO.
If industrial designers conceptualize the design, then why is it that Nike has been producing some of the ugliest designs in the shoe industry- reaaaaal uuuuuugllyyyyyy shoes!!!
Yo, keep the design simple.
whats up with the thread jacking?
personally I think Nike has the most inspiring shoes. They have shoes for every type of person and every type pf personality.
Right now I’m a big fan of all the re-released retro basketball shoes. They are beautiful looking. Also their lines of Metro shoes out are pretty freakin sweet. As far as design goes… Nike is the best. And if you disagree, than… well, take some more design classes.