Visual Hierarchy in Footwear Design. How Will it Evolve?

A purist approach, Visual Hierarchy is an interesting principle of selecting some elements on a design in order of importance to maximise its visual quality.

It helps to develop a design logic and define and focus on perfecting key elements to ensure that a product is not only visually balanced and draws your attention, but also creates a sequence to which the design can reveal and expresses itself in the most logical (although maybe not always the best) way the longer you look at it.

In car design Visual Hierarchy is divided into 1st, 2nd and 3rd “Reads”. They are the 3 main areas of a car that should capture your interest, or curiosity first, but they also make up what should be the best visual expression of the car and its character.

Image Via Why Modern Car Designs Are So Visually Complex | Q&A w/ Pro Designer

For Footwear Design the rule for Visual Hierarchy is also a design logic, but a bit different and maybe more commercially motivated. I would say that its more immersive, but it also complements well the “3 Reads” theory for Car Design.

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Deviance in Sport – Not Just a Rebellious Nuisance, But Also an Agent of Change…and the rest

I’m not sure where I’m going with this post yet, its still just a forming hypothesis, but there seem to be some interesting elements coinciding which I would like to share.

Firstly the words “Deviance” and “Sport” which till now have seemed to me like contradictions, but the more I learn about sport the more they appear to belong together.

Just like “sex, drugs and rock and roll” in music, it seems that the most brilliant artists and athletes must live on the edge to perform beyond the conventional.

While “Deviance” may seem like a pejorative word, you could say that nonconformists are deviant, simply for choosing alternative unconventional ways to express their talent.

The book “Deviance and Social Control in Sport” by Michael Atkinson and Kevin Young also explains how some people are resistant to mainstream/institutional sport which they see as too limiting, exclusionary and authoritarian.

Then consider that innovation and new design are also often deviant, new paradigms are deviant , if nobody was deviant and strayed from convention by thinking divergently, maybe there could be no intentional change.

As a matter of fact the most disruptive brands have never taken the status quo too seriously.

“Skateboarding is Not a Crime”

Skateboarding is probably the best example of deviance in sport and from which an industry and small economy were created. Which isn’t a bad consequence for a “deviant” counter cultural movement that many less progressive people frowned once upon; sometimes putting up street signs forbidding skateboarding and even attaching obstacles to prevent skateboards from passing.

Although “Deviance” can seem a negative word because it means breaking the rules and typically hinders the functioning of a collective group, at the same time it also helps us to question social norms, or moral boundaries and introduce progress.

Ultimately its Liberating!

Fine Huaraches; a Short Video

After just over 2 months my first Huarache exhibition at the MAP museum in Mexico City closed this week.

The Museo de Artes Populares is a very beautiful world class museum dedicated to Mexican Crafts. They are a true patron and I am so grateful for their interest and help.

To learn more about tha fascinating craft of woven Huarache footwear please visit my Huarache Blogs @ http://www.huaracheblog.wordpress.com and http://www.huaracheblog.tumblr.com

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Huarache Blog on Tumblr!

http://www.huaracheblog.tumblr.com with over 1000 photos of Fascinating Mexican Huarache Footwear.

74FDC on Tumblr

A Mix of ideas from the Web.

The Future is Fungi!

Can a disposable fashion garment, or footwear material made from mushrooms/mycelium have a second life as an organic nutrient?

Research Mycelium, its fascinating!

Five years ago I also wrote about BioCouture and clothes made with kombucha.

https://74fdc.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/biocouture-grow-your-own-clothes/

Microfiber Pollution – Turn Waste into Nutrients

…yes, microfiber from the clothes we wear is a significant contaminant..It seems now that recycling plastic after its end life can only be part of the solution, because enough plastic particles also fall off during the life of an object.

A few years ago I introduced the environmental threat of man made synthetic  dust as a contaminant.

https://74fdc.wordpress.com/2015/04/29/man-made-dust-as-a-contaminant/

But it just occurred to me that textiles also shed tiny fibers like dust, so the impact of synthetic particles to the natural environment will go way beyond the dust created by car tyres.

So what can be done? If only I knew! There are front end and back end solutions. Change the make-up of material, or develop ways to contain the dust particles it becomes.

When possible, I lean toward front end proactive solutions. Imagine if garment materials could be organic with a second life as nutrients to the soil we farm on, or the wildlife that eats/absorbs it. Imagine taking your old clothes to a feedlot to be processed into protein supplements for cows?

If it must leak into the natural environment, why can’t we make pollution a nutrient?

“waste does not exist, only wasted resources.” – Nancy Judd

How about biomaterials as nutrients!

The 90’s Are Back!

Can Design be re-designed?

Maurice Conti on Intuitive A.I.

Back in 2012, I wrote about Generative Design on this blog.

The next step and innovation is Design by Intuitive A.I. Check it out in the video below.

I would really like one day to be challenged by an A.I design program, which no doubt will be ridiculously fast. Who knows, maybe one day it will be possible and could make great entertainment, if the possibility of an A.I designed future wasn’t so daunting.

But aside from superior industrial speed and efficiency, will computers also know how to design more complex cultural elements like irony and humor into their footwear designs? Will a computer ever be able to write a good book?

I wonder if a computer will be able to design product with a human/emotional connection? Or if people will still prefer to buy footwear designed by a creative and at times imperfect human-being like a charismatic famous designer, rather than designed by intuitive computer software?