This summer, 30 young students from all the around the world have come together in Portland, Oregon, determined to change the footwear game by embarking in the PENSOLE World Sneaker Championship. Assigned to teams and representing a diverse range of brands, boutiques and major corporations across the industry, they’ve began their journey to design a product that’s ready for retail. These are their stories.
TEAM JORDAN
Roster: Elizabeth Steenwyk, Maher Jemili, Guy Perez and Tuan Nguyen (CMF)
Voices are bouncing ideas off other voices and it makes for a nice hum in the studio at the end of the day. Every group has been working through their design briefs, starting this morning with three possible directions and solidifying one of them thanks to input from D’Wayne and Suzette. It always amazes me to see how much ideas improve once they are subjected to diverse views and that definitely happened today. So often people are afraid to share ideas but, when shared, they improve by leaps and bounds.
A simple, but powerful, reminder. Maher, Guy, Suzette and Tuan discuss story as we settle on our directions. Collaboration between groups is happening, too! This is especially important later when a fresh perspective is just what the design needs.
