Sole-mate: How to be a sneaker designer

The global sneaker market is estimated to be worth around $79 billion and expected to grow.

In a world where everyone is a sneakerhead, do you wish to make the leap to sneakerhand? Do you want to become a sneaker designer?

Few other products tick the three key boxes for success— popular among the young, always trendy and financially viable. The global sneaker market is estimated to be worth almost $79 billion and expected to grow.

If you do wish to become the next Tinker Hatfield, here are some tips from industry veterans, as reported by Complex.com.

1 Study industrial design:Jonathan Grondin of New Balance, who designed NBA star Kawhi Leonard’s sneakers, says, “I’ve seen people who can do hot renderings, but can’t make that a real thing. It doesn’t matter how nice the drawing is if it is just a piece of artwork.”

Industrial design can train you to turn your concepts into tangible products. And the degree will help you get a call from shoe companies.

2 An architecture degree helps too:Hatfield, Nike’s design guru who worked with Michael Jordan on the AJ line, was an architect. So was Wilson Smith III, responsible for kicks such as the Air More Uptempo, Air Jordan 16 and 17, the Pegasus 89, and Andre Agassi’s and Serena Williams’ tennis shoes.

“Shoes are very architectural, it made total sense to make that connection,” Smith says. “The world of design for buildings begins around the concept of form following function and that is important for anyone who wants to become a designer. Thinking about an end user and then creating products that work for that person, designing with that in mind.”

Hatfield drew inspiration from the structure of the Pompidou Centre in Paris before making the Nike Air Max 1, remember?

3 Learn to make exact drawings: D’wayne Edwards, another Nike stalwart who also launched a sneaker design school named Pensole Academy, says, “Draw anything you can see and try to make it look exact. It is all about repetition.”

Edwards recommends getting a firm grasp on drawing before using digital methods. “The digital tools are ruining kids if they don’t know how to use them. If you jump straight to Illustrator or Photoshop, but can’t sketch it, you are skipping a few steps,” he says.

4 Absorb all art: Sarah Sabino, a senior footwear designer and Pensole alumnus, also had a fine arts degree, giving her the best of both worlds.

“(At Pensole) You learn about colour balance, texture, shape, form, and doing it with your hands,” she said. “You use those skills and apply in a different way as a designer. It has been really good for me and a perfect balance of my messy creative side and to clean it up in a design lens.”

Smith said, “Pursue all aspects of creativity as you are coming up through school. It could be calligraphy, pottery, sketching, art, all of it aligns with design. It is all exercising the same design muscles.”

5 Learn presentation skills: You’ve done the hard work and designed a shoe but you still need to sell the idea to your bosses. Says Grondin, “You need to tell me I drew this shoe like this because of this and it goes together like this and costs this much to make it.”