Many years ago while researching the disappearing tradition of Huarache footwear in Mexico, I imagined a future, where only old people still played traditional sport and sport shoes/sneakers no longer had the same appeal as today. Just as in Mexico mostly old men were still making Huaraches and most people did not like them enough to wear over sneakers. Here is this link to that post.
Since “change is the only constant”, without going as far as to say that young people will stop playing sport, it’s not so unlikely that one day people will be less interested in wearing sport inspired shoes. Especially if they become more interested and influenced by other things, just as people were 100, 200, 300 years ago.
All generations have different interests and tastes, just like there was a time when people became less interested in wearing leather shoes. Although our predisposition towards favouring shifting baselines often prevents us from a greater awareness of change and how big it can be.
So what will replace sport as the leading influence of mainstream footwear design?
Continue Reading2, or 3 years ago I posted about how footwear would/could become digitalised, how Nike was investing in VR like Roblox and Animation companies, and how the computer games industry was bigger than the music and film industry combined.
Ultimately it’s probably not surprising considering how large the digital and video games industry are, their profitability and influence, and how many children, and soon to be teenage core Nike customers already spend time in VR (where they already purchase digital products), or playing video games (instead of sport) .
Last week, almost 1 full 24 month creation/development cycle later, Nike introduced their 2024 Olympic kits and AI designed footwear in a way that further suggests this transition to a disrupting digitalised footwear and fashion alternative.
From the Nike Athletes posing in ways which reminded of a video game select screen.
To the many AI footwear designs on show.
Photos via Sneaker News
I was expecting at least wearable shoes from the world’s N.1 shoe company, anything less seems more like corporate art, or a student project.
However after a moment for it to sink in, I wonder if their unwearable concepts could they be Nike’s stepping stones for a future lived in VR, or AR? Because initially it may be necessary to bridge the gap for many older customers that are not as immersed in VR, by offering similar physical alternatives. In this massive redefining leap, maybe not so dissimilar from how music went from CD’s to Streaming.
Shoe designs that don’t need to be physically wearable, because they are meant to be worn in VR and AR. Their physical alternatives, accessories that will serve as ornaments and be like dolls/toys that you can buy and keep on your shelves, as a collectible if you really like them.
Despite this week’s cries of sexist apparel and unwearable designs, maybe Nike are further ahead in digitalising footwear and traditional product than we all imagine?
Need more evidence, wait to watch the Euro 2024 football tournament and probably also the Olympics, filmed with mobile 90m dynamic Filou Speedcam “Railcams” by PMT in the style of a EA Football video game.
Continue ReadingI just came across an old photo from 2004 when we were developing the FW2005 collection at Pony. For some reason I can’t find other sample photos (especially with cables) although there were many. It could be because my computer hard drive broke not long after.
I had found some kevlar cables for speed lacing, in a lace catalog. At that time Salomon had just released for SS2004, their incredible Salomon Fusion Dry and Symbio (for Women) soft shell shoes.
I though that instead, the kevlar cables could be used to create better and lighter support to court shoes, specifically basketball and tennis.
At first it seemed the cables could be stitched between upper and lining, like in this early sketch below. Then maybe woven through holes in the upper?
I think this proto below was a tennis shoe.
In the end the protos with cables looked quite boring, maybe because of the regular layout? But we were designing so many styles and colourways at Pony and in such a short time, that our heads were spinning and there was no time to experiment with different variants and samples.
Pony had just been bough by GBMI and we had little to no performance footwear foundations to build on either, which is probably why the performance shoe designs ended up looking amateurish, despite that this new technology was very interesting and innovative.
Much later in 2008 Nike officially introduced Dymanic Flywire and I believe that they also able patented it. As you would expect, Nike did a much better job and cables are still being used successfully by them to this day, 16 years later.
I think it works particularly well on the Nike Winflo 5 from 2018.
A.I. can be useful to create conceptual pastiches, like making a shoe look like a bean bag.
However getting A.I to quickly figure out design details, especially in complex designs like mass market footwear seems still to be quite challenging and time consuming, more so if the details are unusual, or less likely to have already been published on the internet. On top of which, patching and editing the glitches can can block creative/artistic flow for anyone wanting to dive deep towards a creative goal.
Moreover I’m not sure A.I can understand a shoe as well as a skilled designer, which is very important for creative problem solving. Using A.I quickly in a fast paced environment seems to create variants with a meaningless, jumble of disconnected shapes and lines.
However that abstraction can also be useful in the early creative process to provoke and create the seeds of new meaning and aesthetic. And while for some such provocative abstraction/chaos can also feel satisfying and meaningful to apply in its entirety as a challenging statement to a final design, in the long term we may just be adding aesthetic noise to an already noisy world?
I can see how used abstractly, A.I can be used in the early stages of the design process to stir-up, unbridle, kickstart and loosen up abstract thinking flow. Especially when on the day you don’t have a clear goal in mind. And at the very least it can suggest some interesting lines.
If you can imagine a fast passing game like a Barcelona “Tiki-Taka”, except instead of passing a design between different designers, you can pass it to the A.I and back…and to continue the gamification analogy, until you can see the goal to score.
Fast Paced Project Control in Tight Spaces
For example by entering a much simpler sketch like this, so A.I can quickly pass you one, or more slightly different versions back, for you to contemplate, adjust and build upon. Every time creating new visual cues to help you improve and adjust the upper and sole design from some loose penned concept lines.
While this creative method is aesthetic and without functional goals, its abstract nature can lead to lucky discoveries of new ideas and iterations in a fairly short timeframe. Not to mention a higher rendering quality for those that need it.
Continue ReadingIf art in the early 1900’s become abstract because of the photography, then can a similar split happen with product and design because of A.I (or digital technology)? And did another split also happen to music with digital technology and computers, but without the same reinvention of analog music? Or is it still too early to tell?
So how will analogue design rooted in a hands on approach and sketching reinvent itself after A.I, in the way art did 100 years ago, after photography?
Will some people continue to design, or buy hand crafted/analog footwear and others the vision and complexity of more digital A.I footwear designs?
Will A.I continue in the direction of abstract art, intensifying design aesthetic expression, while Human’s focus on more classic, crafted design, which is also rooted in a more physical interaction, familiarity and community?
How important will the role of community become in the future, especially regarding product and design?
Taking a step back, consider how much of art today is abstract compared to realistic, and what a tiny percentage of people enjoy classical art enough to learn, or buy it. The same is probably also true about footwear when you compare maximally sculptural and colourful running shoes compared to leather oxfords, Mexican Huaraches, Native American moccasins or medieval turn shoes. With the exception of some old footwear styles that are abstracted and remixed with modern components such as sporty and soft running soles that are easier to relate to and more comfortable to wear.
By Alexey Kondakov
Cross-overs provide more easily recognisable abstractions between old and new in product/footwear design, art and music that have also proved popular, especially when you consider the pervasiveness of the remix. Although in some cases the cross-over, mashup recipes seem dated, cross-overs also align well with how A.I merges images from different sources. So its likely that cross-over will continue for some time. Adding strong recognisable cues can also make the new design appear more familiar and relevant. I call this “Piggybacking the Icons”.
With increasingly abstract design tastes, maybe traditional hand crafted/analog footwear can also reinvent itself (as it did at Nike in the late 90’s and early 2000’s and 15 years later), or evolve, if in it’s remixed, cross-over abstractions it includes any deep rooted cultural features, or associations that A.I cannot so easily understand, or replace and compete with. Non aesthetic ingredients, such as community, hand made and nature for example.
Continue ReadingAs a footwear designer I’m also interested in working to a holistic Design philosophy that includes other fundamental design deliverables such as positive social engineering and environmental compatibility. And one of my professional goals is to become more conscious and aware.
My awareness has lead me to believe that we all need to change the way we see design and products as just things that exist to benefit us in the short term as consumers, and that designers can play a key role in encouraging positive social change by making thoughtful choices.
“Design creates culture – Culture shapes values – Values shape the Future.” Robert L. Peters
We often ignore that all the products we use also exist in an equally important past and a future without us. They are created through great efforts by someone else and by relocating and processing natural resources somewhere in the world affecting other people and ecosystems. And their end life also can impact other people and ecosystems of which we usually have little interest in. But just as we have learned to not objectify other people and nature for our temporary benefit, as paradoxical as it sounds we should also learn not objectify products either.
To my surprise it’s almost 10 years ago today that I wrote a post about The “Objectification of Product and it’s Social, Environmental Threats“. I believe that perceiving anything just as an object for our personal use, with no interest in their other qualities/factors that don’t benefit us is short sighted, superficial and in the long term detrimental to our social and environmental health.
I was recently very lucky to design a wonderful example of footwear, created with such positive, past, present and future qualities/factors in mind.
Although at first glance the Wildling Lotus Design has one the easiest and simplest aesthetics and constructions, as a footwear solution its purpose is not just to look new, but to be more meaningful, not just easier to make, or friendlier to nature, but also rooted in family and community.
Functionally the barefoot shoe last will offer the healthiest fit, and the 100% wool upper (which is increasingly rare in footwear) is naturally thermoregulating. The felt is naturally moulded by washing and drying without the use of glued internal reinforcements, no thermoforming plastic fibres are added either and the lanolin in the wool will naturally soften your skin. But both the end product and design were intended to be even more meaningful and holistic than the now mandatory aesthetic, function and eco-friendliness deliverables.
For example a product and design thinking should not just be about how a design used and the customer who uses it, but also about who makes it and how it’s made, and who disposes it and how it’s disposed, re-used, or recycled. The Sustainability in Circularity is not just about the product, but also all who share and are affected by it, all the people and the community that is involved and of course in a few cases animals too.
For example before the Wildling Lotus is used, the wool is sheared from German sheep that are used for land conservation instead of milk, or meat. And in this post I would also like to share the unique way and environment where the Wildling Lotus is made which is equally fascinating.
Unlike traditional design posts, instead of development sketches and inspiration, here I would like to share some images of the production which make the Wildling Lotus so special.
These photos are from a recent development trip to the 101 year old factory where the Wildling Lotus is made, in the middle of Finland, surrounded by a dizzying ocean of rippling green as far as the eye can see.
Naturally the original factory building is no longer in use, but its moving to see the that it’s still preserved and cared for. It’s such a rare and touching thing to feel connected to history through your work.
There are probably less than a handful of Felt Moulding Footwear Factories left in Europe and I feel very lucky to have worked with one of them. Also because its possible to create such minimal footwear out of wool that is so eco-friendly.
The shape of these old traditional boot lasts is also very interesting, because they are so old and yet so anatomical.
As Industry and Industrial processes progress and modernise and in an increasingly technocentric culture, is there a risk that some of the old wisdoms can also be lost and forgotten? Healthy, Natural materials, shoe last shapes, or even working conditions? And what role does a designer play in maintaining, or creating new wisdoms?
It sounds almost magical and utopian, barefoot footwear made from 100% wool felt in a factory, on a farm, in a forest, in Finland. A small farm in the summer and a factory during the frozen Finnish winter. The uniqueness of a shoe born in such a special environment, conditions and materials.
Please click on the link below for more photos and to
Continue ReadingLike all the natural world People are always signalling to be more attractive, or assertive and the social role which they have, or aspire to in society, both formally and informally.
Signalling with their expressions, eye contact, or tone of voice. Even that scrunched up face when smoking a cigarette between index and thumb.
Signalling with their choice of clothes, make up and hairstyle.
Signalling through the products they buy, brand stickers, or tattoos they apply.
Signalling through the photos, posts and comments they publish on social media.
Not to mention signalling with online design portfolios and blogs 😉
To communicate that we are wealthier, healthier, progressive, knowledgable, ethical, moral, or rebellious. Whether we are, or we’re not. Of course not everything is a signal and not every signal reflects exactly what we think it will.
The question is what is generally speaking any consumer group signalling by using your product? And should your next design amplify the signal, or not? When is a product too loud; too rich, healthy, progressive, ethical, or rebellious, or not loud enough?
Could your new design be signalling something different from what your core customers would like to signal?
Has signalling in our culture increased because of social media? What is each of us signalling and what do we prefer to signal more?
With “Virtue Signalling” being a recently frowned upon, or being more discreet by using unbranded “Quiet Luxury” goods. Could signalling be increasing to a level of saturation when it becomes unpopular, and do/will some people prefer not to signal?
If so, can “any” product be designed to be non signalling without being boring, or irrelevant? Or only the most authentic and utilitarian ones, when used in their intended way/context?
For another riff abut signalling check out a previous post here : https://74fdc.wordpress.com/2017/02/20/the-canvas-analogy-of-personal-expression/
P.S. There was a time, before the Romantic movement when when signalling was unpopular, especially in more affluent levels of society where dissimulation was preferred. Are we culturally reaching a point of signalling saturation, or maybe just the simulation side of signalling?
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.
Continue ReadingBased off the 5 Levels of Creativity in Design, from A Transactional Approach to Creativity and its Implications for Education by Irving A. Taylor HERE.
I have been thinking for a while that a pyramid is an interesting way to show these levels. To help visualise and define what height you would like to aim for and in some sense also the level of difficulty and risk you face. Traditionally the further up you go, the fewer designs have been created, but could it also due to a not well enough defined goal, an unvisualised approach and lack of planning?
Continue ReadingMaybe it’s less obvious to non video game players, but the gaming industry is now making more money than the music and movie industries combined. According to a report by SuperData Research, the global gaming market was valued at $159.3 billion in 2020. This includes revenue from console games, PC games, mobile games, and esports.
With Microsoft’s recent bid to buy Activision Blizzard, it seems clearer that gaming will be a key component of the Metaverse, especially since Open World video games already are a small version of how the Metaverse is being portrayed. It also makes the term “video game” sound a little outdated.
Although these are just trailers, you can really get a better sense of the breath taking vision and potential for the gaming Metaverse. The Open World format with its broad horizons, bright blue skies and fantastic creatures has the potential to be massively seductive, especially as an easy escape and to explore beyond the rigid and restricting urban settings that many of us live in.
But I wonder how will footwear design fit and compete with the endless amount of new objects and fantastic characters that will also be for sale in the Metaverse?
If footwear/fashion companies create their own worlds/platforms to trade their digital product, will they also have more competitors and go head to head with digital giants as Microsoft and Activision Blizzard?
Material development, fit and comfort will really become features of the past as lifestyle and aesthetic become more important. Which also follows perfectly what fashion is about. Hyper fashion. But what will our physical homes look like? :))
Also consider how A.I will affect our lives in virtual reality where every second of our living experience can be analysed and become a resource. And what about processing speeds and power? Will it be like air conditioning where processors will increase around the world and cooling them will impact the natural world, increasing the heat levels outside and in the ocean? Maybe giant deep sea processor stations, like water cooled car engines, in simmering oceans? But maybe but then the climate will already have become so harsh on life for it to matter to us, as it does today.
Digital footwear in the Metaverse? The scale of the Metaverse, or its projected scale never ceases to surprise me. Like a Googol, the numbers appear to be racing towards the unfathomable.
Another digital gold rush, it seems more people are heading Virtual instead of West, making the trek with their fingers over keyboard paved trails. I wonder what parallels if any there could be with not just the California Gold Rush, but also closer to home with the dot.com gold rush?
Maybe it’s less obvious to non video game players, but the gaming industry is now making more money than the music and movie industries combined. According to a report by SuperData Research, the global gaming market was valued at $159.3 billion in 2020. This includes revenue from console games, PC games, mobile games, and esports.
To lay the groundwork for a Metaverse platform, Microsoft (who also owns Minecraft) is buying Activision Blizzard for $68.7 Billion.
To get a sense of one of the reasons for such a high price, if its true that Microsoft has sold about 171 Million X-Boxes since 2001, Activision Blizzard currently has 400 Million monthly active players, so you can begin to imagine the potential and growth that Microsoft foresees.
In the context of footwear that could be projected into gaming and/or the Metaverse, if the biggest footwear companies currently sell 65 Million pairs of shoes each month, how many pairs could they sell each month as digital products?
And then, while digging in the search I came across a book titled “How to Spend $75 Billion To Make The World A Better Place”.
Going West?……
Also consider how A.I will affect our lives in virtual reality where every second of our living experience can be analysed and become a resource. And what about processing speeds and power? Will it be like air conditioning where processors will increase around the world and cooling them will impact the natural world, increasing the heat levels outside and in the ocean? Maybe giant deep sea processor stations, like water cooled car engines, in simmering oceans? But maybe but then the climate will already have become so harsh on life for it to matter to us, as it does today.
It sounds back to front; electronics companies are developing running footwear for VR and sports shoe companies creating digital footwear for the Metaverse. 10 years ago who imagined running in a virtual world while sitting down at home?
The future of footwear design in the digital world is hard to imagine, because the digital economy is developing so fast. Putting aside the role of A.I for a second, could it be that in a virtual reality future, special effects will make even digital footwear and professional footwear designers redundant?
Could digital footwear design evolve into added value Avatars for the Metaverse? So will mainstream footwear companies have to become mainly Avatar companies instead? Focusing on complete character designs, instead of individual items of digital sporting goods?
If you think about it, the amount of space that physical footwear can cover your body is limited to a relatively small part for a series practical real world reasons. Firstly it should be easy and quick to put on and take off, second it should remain light and third relatively inexpensive. But in a virtual, fantasy meta world… anything is possible…with enough poly-count and processing speed (unless of course users become less interested in realistic finer details as with some video games).
In a virtual world without those limitations and where “form will not need to follow function”, digital footwear and clothes will easily be merged into a single aesthetic expressions. For example since digital footwear will no longer need to be designed within physical parameters, it will no longer need to have a sole, or a collar which could mean that it will transition into a digital expression of bodywear (or even a body without clothes). The question is what kind of body? A human body, or something more abstract and novel? We will be able to design such interesting and bold Avatars, that footwear design may not stand out as much as it does today under a plain pair of jeans, or training pants.
Here is an interesting animation from a few years ago by Adobe, which I think suggests well some of the diversity of Avatars that could exist in the Metaverse.
It will be interesting how footwear, or sports equipment companies make the transition in VR should footwear aesthetic become less interesting and relevant? And will they need to compete with video game companies and the film industry as well as each other? Will some digital footwear designers transition to character design and how crowded will the designer pool become?
Nike as usual is has positioned itself well ahead of all the other fashion companies to spear head the NFT and Avatar/Character creation/development; strategically by buying RTFKT (artifact) Studios in 2021 (probably because Nike founder Phil and Travis Knight own Laika animation studio). But also the arrival of new CEO John Donahoe from Ebay and Cloud Computing also indicates a shift towards digitalisation. So I can imagine that the company’s budget for digital initiatives will be bigger than at other footwear companies. And the design and quality of their traditional product could begin to take a backseat, or at least be equaled by it digital counterpart. And maybe a lower, or stagnating design quality of physical Nike footwear is already noticeable today, as the Time to Market (TTM) of Nike Footwear coincides with the change of CEO in 2020 and a strategic shift towards digital innovation and resource and budget allocation?
While I haven’t seen much digital footwear from Nike yet, below are some interesting examples of how I think people/avatars could look in the Metaverse by Universal Everything and notice how none include footwear.
Think about it, why will we need digital clothes, or shoes, or distinguish between them, in a world where we can look like anything, from a dragon to a pile of moving rocks? A world where our Avatar can replace our full identity, not just clothes.
Continue ReadingWhat sensory experiences could make a virtual world more compelling?
What would a Haptic suit mean for footwear design, both physical and digital, in appearance and function?
It’s curious how in many ways the multiple layers, structural elements and colour pops of these Haptic gloves already look similar to the design language of many new sneaker designs (click to enlarge).
Both the digital and the haptic innovations will give new meaning to footwear performance technology in the future.
Not my Nike design, but can you see the similarities? Right on point, awesome!
But what is Roblox? What is RAP (Recent Average Price)? How will Nikeland on Roblox be used and by who?
Currently Roblox is the world’s most valuable video game company in the world with more that 27 Million published games. More than half of US children have a Roblox account and half of those are younger than 13 years old, at the same time Roblox is also viewed as the blueprint for the next generation of virtual economies where users can trade virtual assets from digital shoes to digital houses and furniture. So its easy to see why sports footwear an equipment companies need to enter.
But how will the sporting goods business evolve if people prefer to spend time in a digital world instead of a physical world? E-Sports, E-Disco/Raves, E-Dating, or E-Trading, the range of new digital footwear designs and experiences will be virtually limitless. But maybe the sport aesthetic expression may be harder to develop if video game players will be free to play E-Sports like FIFA football video game as a lizard avatar, or Super Mario? And sports companies will probably also need to compete with more specialised and experienced businesses like video game and movie industry animation companies.
All this takes me back an old post I wrote years ago to explain why I was so drawn to documenting and blogging about Mexican Huarache footwear titled “A Future Without Sports, Without Sneakers, Without Huaraches?” (click on the title). What place in our culture will sports footwear have in 50 years? And if your Avatar will be a fantastic alien creature, how will any digital footwear design still be relevant?
But back to the near future, what incentives will be created to keep people on any virtual, or augmented platform the longest? Certainly if going out to bars, clubs and sporting events continues to be inconvenient because of the usual pandemic restrictions, or even the concern of becoming infected, its easy to imagine how a more life like social media could be more appealing than before.
And how will our data be used and what new data can be collected as we become more connected? Maybe even our Brain Activity? How symmetrical will our data exchanges be in a Web3 world?
…and since when did video games become trading? Can online trading replace sport? Will investing in digital shoe designs replace buying physical footwear? How much will digital life experience replace organic life experience? Simple things, but that are inherently human and natural, like meeting friends in a park, or at the beach, or pool, playing a game of football, or tennis, or going for a walk in the woods. It’s not difficult to imagine since we already experience a lot of our life through digital interfaces, instead of physically.
This is the first video that came up searching for “RAP on Roblox”, its almost 3 years old and has over 1m views. Its also by the “RICHEST robloxian”…allegedly.
Vans has also launched Vans World on Roblox.
Below is what it looks like and some of the things you can do. More info on Venture Beat.
This post has maybe less to do with Footwear than the title suggests, but I hope the video below can be a useful introduction to the Metaverse with which footwear is increasingly becoming aligned and connected. Speaking in the video is also Maye Musk the mother of Elon.
We have all heard of Bitcoin, Blockchain, NFT’s, 5G, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, the Internet, Zoom and Social Media. The Metaverse from what I understand would be the ultimate digital ecosystem and merge all the digital technologies together, including Digital Footwear.
It all seems like a new and fascinating world that is being developed, with infinite fantastic experiences to chose and new flourishing economies, but at the same time it also seems a bit dehumanising to live inside a more simplistic video game world. And will we continue to value the natural world as we increasingly lose our awareness and interaction with it?
And as footwear designers will we eventually face the choice between encouraging a less physically active indoor culture, disconnected to the physical world and/or losing our commercial relevance?
The photo below from Vogue Czechoslovakia (interesting that Vogue would chose a country that no longer exists) shows Maye Musk wearing Digital Clothes and Footwear, possibly purchased online and downloaded from Wanna Kicks.
I ended one of my latest posts Digital Footwear, The Future of Footwear? with the Fermi Paradox which I would like propose again because I feel that maybe it helps explain the root cause of the current shifts.
Continue ReadingEvery now and then a technology can completely change how products are made used and look, this fundamental change is also known as a “paradigm shift”. Digital Technology has helped create paradigm shifts in almost every corner of modern human life (while the improvements that Digital Technology has brought to nature are less obvious).
But if Digitalisation has profoundly changed music, video, retail and banking, how will it change Footwear? Also consider how 5G could boost the use and reach of Digital Technology.
For example, how many people will it take to design, develop, produce and distribute 10,000-100,000 pairs of just one Digital Footwear style, compared to a Physical design? Consider that with purely digital footwear designed for VR, you also won’t need to to fit and wear test physical samples, although it may need to be wear tested in a digital environment for other types of functionality, for example how it’s aesthetic will hold up in a dynamic digital environment. In 2013, I wrote a post about Motion Sculpture if you would like to get a better idea of what I mean.
Just think how disruptive digital technology has been, from Cntrl-C/Cntrl-V, to digital images and video, often providing such impressive results at the press of a button, and now imagine how much more it will develop and how much time and money is currently being invested in it.
And along with Digital Footwear, its physical version which I will call “Shell Footwear” (usually injection molded, or 3D printed Mono Material), seems also to be perfectly aligned to follow in the footsteps of all the other disruptive digital products that are commonly available today. And the kind of footwear that was first made popular by Crocs could be how all mainstream physical footwear will look in the future.
Already injection molded footwear has shown how a design can be digitally shared anywhere in the world and then mass produced with significantly reduced production labour. The downside is the very high initial costs for making the relatively expensive molds for each size. So usually injection molded shoes need to be sole in hundreds of thousands of pairs to make a reasonable profit.
But maybe tomorrow anyone could by themselves create a footwear design that can be easily 3D Printed and sold to thousands of social media followers online? So could digital product platforms turn into the new fashion brands of the future, becoming giants like Sound Cloud and YouTube? And what will this mean for retail, factory work and industry as we know it?
What started as digital designs created for internal design presentations are quickly developing into commercial AR/VR products and also 3D Printed Designs for commercial use.
In fact Sustainability goes way beyond chemical pollution and CO2 emissions. Beyond plastic and petrol. And I’m very excited to share this with you today.
For example should Governments, Companies and Individuals also focus on Social Sustainability goals and what would they be specifically for each group?
Sustainability is about finding harmony and balance in life in every way. I would say its a mindset and a culture. Could it be that if we don’t also concern ourselves with Social and Economical Sustainability, that we won’t be able to achieve Ecological Sustainability?
Considering the material and social consequences of our actions in these fast changing times is becoming increasingly important and ways/tools that will help us to make the transition also.
An interesting way to look at Sustainability is through the Circles of Sustainability model.
“Circles of Sustainability is a method for understanding and assessing sustainability, and for managing projects directed towards socially sustainable outcomes. It is intended to handle ‘seemingly intractable problems’ such as outlined in sustainable development debates. The method is mostly used for cities and urban settlements”. – Via Wikipedia
But I think this model can also be applied companies that make and sell products like footwear and can be extended to the suppliers that they partner with.
For a Footwear Company the Circle of Sustainability model could start to look something like this below. I tried to adapt the Circle of Sustainability above from Wikipedia and I’m sure there is much more that can be added, but it seems like a good start.
One area that I think is missing from the above model is Automation and how it can be sustainable in the social/professional context. I can imagine how footwear production will become increasingly automated and I see many 3D digital and printed models online that align themselves well with the current injected footwear mass production model.
Could “Shell” footwear be the Future (and a topic for a future post)? Made from a mono material for easy processing and especially recycling (and no disassembly) could almost certainly also be an advantage to Sustainability. But what will such a shift mean for Footwear Professionals in creation/development and especially production positions?
Also I couldn’t think of the equivalent for Politics, which I will need to mull over a bit…
Could digital footwear be a significant solution to the problem of pollution?
And wearing AR Glasses, or VR Goggles will we still need special/complex physical clothes and shoes if they will be overlayed digitally with outerworldly, cosmic, or even mind blowing psychedelic creations only possible in a digital reality? Maybe simple organic cotton slippers is all we’ll need for our feet and all impressive new designs will be digitally superimposed.
Will 5G help make all this a reality?
Almost 10 years ago, I wrote a post titled 3D Printer Art – The Future of Footwear Sole Design , at that time just a few mathematically minded computer modellers were creating incredible 3D sculptures. Now almost 10 years have passed and it’s incredible to see how 3D design has developed in footwear, beyond just sole design and 3D printing components.
With the recent introduction of Facebook Meta and the Nike trademark of digital Footwear, Apparel and Accessories, it would seam that digital footwear is going beyond 3D printing and is now well on its way to entering the mainstream and digital channels of distribution like music and movies, which could be its truest and best suited application.
The arrival at Nike of new CEO John Donahoe from Ebay and Cloud Computing would indicate at least internal shift towards digitalisation. How quickly it will be accepted and used by the public is the question. Is the transition to a fully digitalised world and lifestyle inevitable?
Assuming that the electricity required to run our virtual worlds does not become too much like it has for Bitcoin mining, it could be that digital products will one day also become the most eco-friendly fashion choice.
Digital footwear has been around for a few years and is currently mostly available and used as AR on phone apps like Wanna Kicks. But VR could be the next logical step, especially since Facebook has been developing it for a very long time.
Although it’s not clear how much poly-count and processing speeds will increase to develop such an immersive digital lifestyle, its probable that they will continue exponentially.
*Please wait a few seconds for the large gif files to load below 😉
Continue ReadingYesterday I saw some reverse Reverse Graffiti for the first time and after searching for it online realised that I don’t get out nearly as much as I used to.
Such a bold paradox, I find it really powerful how graffiti that is usually frowned upon can reveal how we ignore, or tolerate the more serious damage of air pollution.
Its also a really interesting way to up-cycle dirt and great example of subtractive and accessible art.
This stencil called “Clean lungs” in Bristol by sculptor and installation artist Luke Jerram to raise awareness of an anti-pollution campaign.
But interesting effects are also possible on street signs. This has become increasingly possible as government cuts more funding to town councils.
Can Reverse Graffiti be criminalised, or is it just selective cleaning done creatively? After all if regulations existed to reduce air pollution and keep our cities clean, Reverse Graffiti would not be possible to make.
There are even special markers for Reverse Tagging.
In case you were wondering, here are some interesting videos about how Reverse Graffiti is made:-
This video has some funny moments, “does it come of?” – “yeah I’m cleaning it!”
And since I currently live in Cologne….
StyleGAN is an open source image generating algorithm that can blend different images to create hybrid alternative options.
Ever since the introduction of Grasshopper 3D modelling algorithm and the “Internet of Things”, I have wondered how long before a “slidebar” design approach would also become an key part of the footwear design process.
As far as I know Designer Zixiong Wei has been the first to try it on footwear. His video provides a first glimpse of what I believe will be the future footwear design process and interface.
If this is the first time that such a thing has been done, I think could be one of the most significant moments in the history of Design.
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I have recently moved to live in Russia and the inspiration here is incredible.
One inspiration being the word “Peredvizhnik”, which has 2 meanings, the first which is wanderer and the second to name a small very interesting group of Russian artists in the 1860’s who formed a group called the”Peredvizhniki” to protest against the conservative artistic restrictions in Russia at that time.
The Peredvizhniki also made traveling art exhibitions hence the name “wanderers”, to give people living in the provinces the chance to appreciate and learn about art.
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!
Sofia Kesidou created a series of works called Paper Clips which explores a banal object as a unique subject. Hundreds of pencil drawings show the beauty and the movement in a simple strip of metal.
In drawing the paper clip, restricting aspects such as scale are lost as the object is presented in a more abstract form. The point was to show and see the beauty of shapes and details in ordinary objects.
I think learning focus on simple beauty is essential and I found this simple project very powerful and stunning.
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
https://www.huaracheblog.tumblr.com with over 1000 photos of Fascinating Mexican Huarache Footwear.
At long last, I’m very pleased share my Huaraches exhibition at the stunning MAP museum in Mexico City from Feb.28th to May 6th.
This unique exhibition will feature the finest and rarest bespoke traditional Mexican woven footwear.
The most complex leather weaves made by the most talented and few remaining Huarache Artisans.
This exhibition is a dream come true and I would like to thank @map_mexico museum very much.
For more information about the fascinating Huarache footwear please visit my Huarache Blogs @
www.huaracheblog.tumblr.com and www.huaracheblog.wordpress.com
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/
While on one hand Karl Marx wrote in his “mature analysis of the alienation of nature” about a Metabolic (irreparable) Rift that would occur between humans and nature from capitalist agricultural production and the growing division between town and country (today, 56% of the world’s population, 4.4 billion inhabitants live in cities).
On the other hand the Biophilia Hypothesis by Edward O. Wilson is a theory in Evolutionary Biology which offers us some hope by suggesting that there is an instinctive bond (a Genetic Memorymark) between human beings and other living systems.
Meaning that humans naturally have an instinctive attraction to nature. Think about how many people enjoy gardening, flowers, stray cats and country walks. Supposedly these preferences aren’t cultural, but evolutionary behavior that developed to benefit our survival as a species. For example the love for flowers and plants developed so humans would remember and spot species that provided nutrition.
Also consider how natural environments remains beautiful even on cloudy or rainy days, whereas man made environments don’t.
Via Wikipedia
If this hypothesis is true, then maybe a way to help the transition to a more environmentally friendly culture, could be if outdoor companies and government nurtured that Biophilic bond that already exists. With designs and initiatives that encouraged and facilitated outdoor experiences, contact and connection to the natural environment.
Personally I don’t think it gets any better than doing a sport or pursuit which brings you into nature.
For more on this subject check out a previous post titled “Outdoor Performance Design – The Key to a Sustainable Future?”
On a side note the intro to Björk’s latest music project called “Biophilia”.
The designs can communicate natural beauty like foliage and proud statement to be outdoors.
And marketing can also communicate a soft approach to nature. Because product is not just for consumption, but can also be used for education.