Collection 100 - Product

Following both the research and the 100 categories tasks, I decided to focus in on NIKE 'Dunks' as an ongoing theme. Particularly on the designs and colours.
As I previously stated, a lot of people during my time researching have told me they find the shoes slightly over-done now... unoriginal. But I have not found 2 people wearing exactly the same pair of shoes twice. I want to find a way of communicating that, however small the difference... there are endless possibilities with these shoes.
My first point of contact is going to visit the NIKE website and looking at the I.D feature, where you design the entire shoe yourself.
These are the categories of shoes you can customize.
I chose to look at the 'Dunk' option... and even just under this there were 13 different styles of shoe you could customize yourself. Both hi and low topped.
I chose to design a traditional pair of hi-top dunks. And want to show how different one pair of the same shoe can be...
You even get an option over what the shoes are made out of.
You can chose any colour... From bright and garish... to dark and simple.


Same shoe... but so different.

Even the tiniest difference makes them original.
You can even get your name (or anything really) on the backs.

Following this research, and some further mind-mapping, I decided I wanted to make a product which got people questioning the endless opportunities of different styles and shoes... so that maybe it would change people's ideas about the originality of each pair of shoes.
I initially wanted to create a pair of cardboard shoes... made of 100 pictures of different versions of the same shoe... much in the style of David Brownings, who a friend showed me when he found out what I was researching... who makes cardboard trainers to order.
Oddly, after looking at these, I found I recognised the name... and on further inspection of my facebook account, realized that David was in fact on my foundation course in Brighton with me in graphics... small world.
But after thinking about the paper shoe out of pictures idea, I thought that it wouldn't get people to actually interact with the product... have any input on the shoe design or anything.
Back to the drawing board... I wanted to find a way of getting people to design the pair of shoes...
After a really useful crit with Amber, in which I was close to the despair at my mind block... she came up with the idea of a colouring book. A perfect way of getting people to do it themselves... they can colour, draw, doodle, use any kind of media to design a pair of completely unique trainers.

Following this, I set off to draw a pair of shoes on Illustrator. Which proved a bit troublesome as I wasn't at all competent with the programme (but practice makes perfect ey) and I took a good 7 hours on my final pair.
I based them a picture of some of my own shoes... probably my favourite pair of shoes in the world.
I then looked at existing colouring books... looking at the line quality and thickness. I found a lot of them were highly similar. Rather thick, smooth lines.
I tried out a couple of times, with different line strengths.

Too thin.
Too thick.

Perfect.

I then printed them off in A3 and A4... and noticed small things which didn't look right, un-needed lines, rough edges and bits which needed reeling in/rounding. But overall they looked rather good.

This was the final design.

What I also found was that they worked a lot better at A3 scale... there was far more room for designs and different colours.
Following this, I wanted to try out my idea... and followed to get as many people as I could to design their own pairs of shoes. 100 was a little tricky to achieve... but there were some brilliant ones.
These are the most successful...
My favourites being the ones where people put real effort into the design...

I also found I had trouble using photoshop to edit out the edges... this took me a great amount of time to master... but I got there.

Following another really useful crit, I have now decided to create 5 colouring books, using proper stock for the pages, also featuring my favourite out of the ones both I and other people have created.
I also, if I have time, would like to create a large poster of all the ones which people have done.


Foll