TEAM UNDER ARMOUR
Roster: Satoshi Sutoh, Jonathan Guisbert, Ako Xiang and Set Peterson (CMF)
It’s 11:34pm right now as I’m sitting writing this blog, one red bull deep, and about two hours of work left to do. Not that I’m complaining or anything, I’m actually having fun right now, although I know I’m going to feel not so great in the morning. Today has been all about refining concepts and figuring out how our ideas will work, or if they will work. Below I’ll go through one of the main pieces I’m investigating, having to do with ankle and heel support. For tomorrow, we’ll be narrowed down to two concepts, and I’m feeling pretty good about mine, although now I just have to get them on to paper. –Jonathan Guisbert
After doing my first exploration sketch, I thought I had the TPU molded ankle support/heel clip down. But after talking to Craig, a 30-year veteran footwear engineer, I realized there were some kinks that needed to be worked out. Next step was moving onto the clay molded piece which is in red. That was fun because I hadn’t worked with clay since like 4th grade. But it was also cool because I was able to really see every curve that was needed to make this thing work for the ankle and not against it. Then I took the mold and used that to create my second exploratory sketch, to see how it would fit with the rest of the shoe. I think I’m heading in the right direction, next I just need to sketch the actual concept upper and tooling, and consider how I’ll tell the interior story on the outside of the shoe. –Jonathan Guisbert
From inspiration to shape: The work today is difficult. Any work put out yesterday was not good so I had to sketch thumbnails again to get the better one. Saturated situations like today are very severe for me. But, I tried to do that with positive feelings because the new, better ideas always waited for me over there.
In the afternoon, I made the model and took the simulation. Ideas translatable into reality are very persuasive. In the end, I was trying to make the different way to tighten the upper until the time to go back to our hotel. Maybe that situation gave us special concentration. I had a satisfying day. –Satoshi Sutoh
Read the rest of the diaries here.
