高年级学生为匡威设计运动鞋

你喜欢旅游吗？ 想象一下，你被送到冰岛，在午夜的阳光下欣赏现代主义建筑。 If you’re into cars, you could spend a week at Aston Martin in the U.K. living out James Bond fantasies while immersing yourself in one of the world’s most iconic car brands. 爱时尚吗? You’d travel to Paris and Milan to spend a week with the top designers at Chanel and Prada. 作为对这些梦想之旅的回报，你只有一个责任：获得灵感！

 

That was the message from Peter Hudson, VP of Global Design & Innovation at Converse, to 上学校 students who participated in 贝博体育app’s Sneaker Design Club this spring. 该俱乐部由创新总监David Dixon组织，是贝博体育学生和匡威鞋业公司之间的合作设计项目。

 

24名对设计感兴趣的高中学生花了9周时间沉浸在运动鞋的设计过程中，从灵感到原型。

The design challenge: to develop an “all- round” sports shoe targeted to the teenage market that incorporates smart technology. Peter Hudson (who is the father of Grace ’15, Hannah ’17, and Sarah ’20) provided the group with Converse shoe “lasts” (the solid forms around which Converse sneakers are designed), materials to incorporate in their designs, and, most importantly, the wisdom and expertise of 24 years in the design field. “From the first meeting, Peter made the connection between school and the real-world environment of a designer,” says David.

 

At the club’s first meeting, Peter shared some of the key personality traits for a successful designer:

 

 • 设计师的灵感来自于他们周围的世界。 Peter sends his Converse designers on “inspiration trips” around the world twice a year to keep them energized and their ideas fresh. “If you’re a designer and you’re stuck in a box, then you’re not getting fueled with ideas and creativity.”

 

• 设计师是天生的评论家 who look at everything and believe they could make it better.

 

• 设计师必须愿意逆流而上。 “The world will say ‘No!’ but designers, engineers, and thinkers have to say ‘Why not?’” says Peter, advising students to stay passionate about their ideas.

 

• 设计师必须与团队合作。  “I don’t make 90 million pairs of Chuck Taylors personally,” says Peter, “so I work with people in marketing, advertising, and engineering. As a designer, you are part of a team, and you have to embrace that.”

• 设计师必须画草图。 Designers don’t have to be accomplished artists— though it helps—but they have to build on their ideas by getting them down on paper.

 

• Designers have to be consumer-obsessed.  “A lot of product goes into landfill,” says Peter,  “so you have to design products that are meaningful to consumers.”

Like “real” designers, the 贝博体彩app designers began by making ‘lifestyle’ boards focusing on the teenage customer. 他们从杂志上剪下图像来代表他们的兴趣，包括服装、体育和科技。 They also created ‘mood’ boards with colors, textiles, and images to evoke an atmosphere. “They looked at a broad range of items—textiles, technology, cars, sculpture, flowers, geometric patterns—as a springboard to produce original ideas,” explains David.

 

贝博体彩app设计师随后面临的挑战是将这些想法提炼成最关键的设计组件。 In order to help students’ ideas flow, David presented a speed-sketching exercise: using templates from Pensole, an online footwear design academy, each designer had five minutes to produce a single sketch for a running or basketball shoe. 不到一个小时，学生们就画出了几幅鞋子草图。

 

准备开始设计时，学生们费力地浏览了所提供的一系列材料

找到合适的颜色组合和面料风格。 一些人根据强度、颜色和质地选择面料，而另一些人则追求彩虹色等品质。 在这个阶段，每个学生制作三到四张详细的图纸，最终选择一幅做成表格，呈现给Peter和俱乐部。

 

Using techniques gleaned from a YouTube video, students learned how to tape up a shoe last in masking tape—a technique used by real designers—onto which they could then draw and color their design. In a real sneaker design process, the panels would then be cut away with a craft knife and sent with detailed information to a seamstress, who would sew a model of the shoe’s upper.

 

学生们在最后一堂课上向彼得展示了他们的作品。 The final designs represented a wide array of ideas, including self-tying sneakers for the teen who can’t be bothered, sneakers with removable outsoles for different terrains, even sneakers inspired by the Reinke indoor turf field. “I was surprised by the complexity, maturity, and ambition of some of the students, as well as their self-discipline,” says David.

 

另一方面，彼得对设计中体现的辛勤工作和独创性印象深刻，但并不感到惊讶。 “All of you wanted to do the work,” he says, “and when you’re passionate about something, you’re already halfway there.”