TEAM UNDER ARMOUR
Roster: Satoshi Sutoh, Jonathan Guisbert, Ako Xiang, and Set Peterson (CMF)
This weekend was like a sketching marathon! The Under Armour team kept pencils to paper both Saturday and Sunday and we’re feeling good about our progress so far. After some great feedback from professionals on Friday we had to rethink some of our concepts, make adjustments and also decide what not to adjust if we felt strongly about it. One of the challenging things we dealt with was deciding which feedback to take action on and which comments could only serve us going forward for the next design. For me, it’s in my nature to try and please everyone, but I’m learning that it’s really impossible to do that, so I have to ultimately do what’s best for the consumer I’m designing for, not for me or for anyone else. –Jonathan Guisbert
Welcome to my little design corner at my apartment. I moved to Portland from NY last year to continue to pursue my passion for product design. Fortunately, this meant that once I got into World Sneaker Championship, I didn’t have to travel far to attend. While I do enjoy being down at the Pensole studio with all the other students, I like working alone sometimes so I can really get in the zone. Plus, I have easy access to food since the fridge is about 4 feet from my desk…strategically placed! This weekend, I spent many hours at this desk sketching and shutting the world out with some 90’s hip hop, which really get my creative juices flowing. – Jonathan Guisbert
Tools of my trade: Up until 2 weeks ago, I had almost completely forgotten about the No.2 pencil. As an industrial design student, I’ve been taught to sketch in pen and I think it’s kept my lines deliberate, but also, sometimes prevents me from making slight adjustments without overpowering my sketches. D’Wayne has really pushed us to use pencils, and although he didn’t want to give us a specific reason at first, he later explained that it was to enhance our sense of proportion, being able to make very subtle changes in lines is key to learning proper proportions because it makes you think of how the shoe is actually built, where the upper gets glued to the midsole, and where the crevices of the heel counter can begin/end. He kind of teaches like Mr. Miagi from Karate Kid. I definitely appreciate this teaching style for design; since footwear is so organic, there are lots of subtleties that you need to hone in on to make your sketch look right. One thing I’m also learning is that warm up sketches are really important; repetition creates habits, and habits then become who you are (got that line from D’Wayne). While at first I hated using pencil, after sketching with the tool so many hours, it’s become kind of dear to me. I like that it can be soft when I need it to be, or bold when I want to punch up some lines. Plus, I really like the fact that a good eraser can go a long way! The above are some of the tools I’ve been using the past few weeks and I think it’s also good to be versatile and work in different mediums because every tool has a different feel/texture, almost a different personality. –Jonathan Guisbert
