In the second semester of my first-year Industrial Design studio at Georgia Tech, I was assigned to make a pair of shoes. Design constraints for these shoes included using only the industrial wool felt material we were provided and a singular sustainable material for the sole, the shoe had to be no more than three individual pieces sewn together, and the shoe had to be perfectly formed to our feet without using shoelaces or any other kind of tightening method. Safe to say this was pretty challenging…
I’m still a big fan of this concept, but my execution definitely fell short in a few areas. I’ll list 3 here.
1) Let’s be real, it’s just a glorified sock. Since we were only allotted one material for the sole and I ran out of time to try and build up a sole with the felt, the bike tire is the only thing separating the foot from the ground. If I revisited this project with fewer limitations, I would explore ways to make a sole molded to my foot, with 3D printing flexible filament being the most attractive option to me. Additionally, the construction, especially around the toe box, just doesn’t make sense. I should have used real shoes more heavily as reference for how I should’ve constructed it.
2) The whole ankle bit is a mess. I tried several different methods during the testing process, but without shoelaces it just doesn’t work. If I revisited this project with fewer limitations, I would 100% add shoelaces as that’s kind of critical in a hiking boot for ankle stability. I would also build out certain areas with extra padding to account for things like the ankle bones.
3) I’d like to do more experimenting with the colors. I said in my market research that a “flashy” hiking boot would make sense, but while this design is weird, I’m not sure that it’s “flashy”.
In summary, I very much so understand why shoes are so expensive now. Especially highly technical ones like sneakers and especially hiking boots. I definitely want to come back to shoes one day and give it another go.