TEAM UNDER ARMOUR
Roster: Satoshi Sutoh, Jonathan Guisbert, Ako Xiang, and Set Peterson (CMF)
Week 2 is almost over and we’re now working on refining our concepts and our design briefs. I’m excited (and honestly slightly nervous) for tomorrow because there are going to be lots of brands coming in to visit and give us some tips for how to move forward with our sketches. But as I’ve learned from D’Wayne, one of the biggest challenges we have to face as designers is being able to take feedback and then use it in a productive way, so that’s my goal tomorrow. Today, we had our second day of materials review so we learned about synthetics and leather, along with all the materials and processes that go into making a final materials package. Tonight is going to be a super long night, preparing my wall for our visitors tomorrow. – Jonathan Guisbert
Tomorrow will be the first round of presentation, so now I need to clarify the design direction. I have to select some sketches to show my ideas clearly. I hope everything goes well tomorrow. – Ako Xiang
So, we’ve been studying materials the past 2 days and it’s been really interesting to learn about manufacturing processes and how colors affect the emotional feel of a product. It’s something I didn’t really know all too well before coming to Pensole, but now I have definitely stepped up my material game. Above is a picture of two really interesting materials I looked at, Kevlar on the top and a woven, flexible carbon fiber underneath. These materials were used in aerospace construction and were amazing to feel and see what kind of properties they have. The image on the bottom actually inspired one of my concepts, while carbon fiber is out of the question for my price point, the structure gave me an interesting idea. I’ll give a sneak peak of that this week! – Jonathan Guisbert
Following the class yesterday, we got the instruction about CMF. Today’s topic is “the usage of synthetic leather.” Two instructors working as a sportswear CMF designer talked about that. Recently, synthetic leather is the most popular material as a footwear upper, so it was an impressive opportunity for our team.
In the afternoon, our instructor Suzette gave us the lesson about real leather. Many kinds of samples, colors, patterns and textures gave us some inspiration about finishing our work. Until tomorrow, we have to clean up our own design brief, so I want to make this experience useful for my work. – Satoshi Sutoh
Read the rest of the diaries here.
