Sketch-Fu: Men's Footwear

Michael, these sketches are an improvement over your earlier work. I can see that you’re working on your originality. However, I can also still see a ton of existing Nike styling in your designs. Keep thinking “form-follows-function,” but I want to see less Nike, more Mike (as in Mike Zaleta).

Our office just got sketchbook pro added to our machines thank goodness.
Mock Sneaker.tif (1.33 MB)

consideration of proportion is a prevailing idea that is thankfully being hammered into our habits by those generous enough to share your knowledge, so i just want to ask…have you all seen the sketches for the adidas adiZero Crazy Light? (check out counterkicks.com for pics) i ask, not to ridicule it or put it in a bad light, but because when i saw it, i immediately thought to myself, ‘my god, that toe is long!’. is my eye that untrained, or are some of the sketches extremely disproportionate? and if they weren’t, i would hate to think that those were the best sketches that could be shown off to the media.

again, i’m not in the industry, so my opinion may not be well-recieved, but i just want to make sure my ideas of proportion aren’t so off.

good eye. the toe does seem long a possible explanation:
Generally shoes (men’s) are designed based upon a size 9 or 9.5 foot. many times basketball shoes, especially ones for signature players are designed for a much larger foot. the Larger foot size is likely the reason for the longer toe.

but then woldn’t the rest of the shoe also grow proportionately? i mean, the collar, heel and ankle of the shoe look alright, but then the toe looks like it’s been stretched way too much.

I thought the forefoot was freakishly long in the sketches as well. Good thing it didn’t translate to the final product.

yeah…and again, i’m not pointing it out to criticize…i’m bringing it up bc it baffles me how proportion is drilled into our heads, and then a large company with amazing designers releases such poorly proportioned sketches. i mean, is it like that ‘you’ve got to know a rule to break it’ type deal, or is it just just plain bad proportions?

it does look too long.

not exactly. a size 13 foot will be significantly longer but the ankle will only be a little larger than a size 9.

here’s some other coloways about CAAN project…

about adidas zero light…there’s a point in all of you guys…but i think sometimes sketches from experienced designers like these,can be a bit more artistic or loose form with fast lines just to catch the meaning of their idea on the paper…so this can happen in the birth of an idea considering the thing that they are sure about the final product and the new technological characteristics they gonna use in it…i think designers here focused more on the technical part and new materials than sketch ideation…and we all can see the final result…i’m not in the industry as well but smtimes sketches like these makes you think-in a good way-why i’m not there…but…behind all these knowledge and expirience comes first…cheers!

every designer works differently has their own way of doing things…my guess would be that some of them were probably initial stage notebook/designer sketches, where getting the idea/aesthetic down was more the focus than nailing tthe ‘perfect’ proportions…or maybe its just exaggerating the shape to really emphasize the lightness/sleekness of the shoe to really sell the idea…

so to answer your question, for professional designer, the proportions & the sketches in general are far less important because they are going to be judged off of what the final product looks like; how they were able to translate 2d into 3d. whereas if a student were putting this into their portfolio, it would be more important to have the proportions down because it is one the main things a student or someone with less experience will be judged off of (ideas, sketches, thought process) and it shows some knowledge of footwear, it could be the difference between your design looking like a boot, a basketball shoe, or just plain weird…

I’ll add to the above by saying that proportions are important at a student level - you need that discipline drilled into your head. Designing footwear isn’t all about drawing shoes - that’s only part of the puzzle. Drawing is the beginning of the whole process; you can work through problems more efficiently while sketching and you can communicate your ideas to whomever is going to give the project the green light to go into the sampling/prototype phase. If it goes forward, you’ve still got a hundred other steps to go through - and knowing the proportions (coupled with your design intent) helps you better solve all of the problems and weirdnesses that come up while you’re developing the thing.

Shoe design is a balancing act. Proportions and communication is part of the foundation.

Practice Footwear Sketching/Marker Rendering
Please excuse the poor photograph…

Constructive criticism welcome!



I’ve been hooked on these NBA playoffs. It’s great cereal and sketching time.

great stuff david.

Nothing special by any means just a quick marker rendering expressing some ideas

Once you have mastered proportions, you can start messing with them…

Eg to sell a sprint shoe concept you can make it really sleek and fast. To sell your mountain boot you can beef it up.

When you are rough sketching it is ok to play around with proportions. Be very careful with this though. i have seen many of designs that only work because the proportions are cheated. once these designs get translated to a real shoe they look bad. Your design needs to look good with the real proportions of the last. If the shoe does not look good in real proportions it will not sell.

The example given previously is designed for a much larger foot than your traditional size 9, this is why it looks out of proportion.

You know when you finish all your specs and shell patterns at work and youre ready to go home but its only 4pm?
Yeah its when I discovered sketch-fu.l :sunglasses:
Just a fun page of lifestyle sketches to kill some time…