Nike 10 Years Gold Medal Design Director Set Up Global Design Institute

If you want to buy a pair

It's good to shop or shop online.

But if you want to design a pair of sports shoes, of course, things are not that simple.

Most of the designer's educational background is product design or industrial design.

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But these courses are mainly about how to design dress shoes, and there may be only about 5 schools in the United States.

Pensole Footwear Design Academy founder D Wayne Edwards said.

D 'Wayne Edwards from 2001 to 2010 was the director of footwear design in Nike. She was one of the 8 designers who participated in the Air Jordan series. She also designed sneakers for Carmelo Anthony, Derek Jeter, Roy, et al. It was also the designer of the national basketball team of the 2008 year Olympic Games, and was ranked as one of the 50 most influential players in the current footwear industry.

Interestingly, Edwards has no professional background.

27 years ago, when he entered the L.A. Gear as a clerk, he was a high school student.

For 6 consecutive months, he delivered a different design sketch of his sneakers to the company's employee opinion box, and finally became a designer on the age of 19.

When he became a design director, he began to recruit people, and the problems he had encountered seemed to remain: "the shoe industry in the United States can create 50 billion dollars a year, and 80% of them are concentrated in 5 states, namely, Oregon, California, New York, Massachusetts and Michigan, but you can't find a few designers of sports shoes designers who can meet the requirements in a large number of applicants."

"This is different from the SAT exam. What you need is portfolio."

The next story is like a samsara.

In 2008, Edwards launched a Nike Jordan Future Sole design competition for high school students. After three years, the number of people taking part in the competition from 800 to 10 thousand increased to 100 thousand.

So in 2010, Edwards then set up the world's first professional shoe design institute, Pensole Footwear Design Academy in Portland.

Pensole does not sound like a sneaker Training Institute.

The successful applicants are free of room and lodge, and each period is controlled by 60 persons.

The main source of profits actually comes from talent intermediaries and brand promotion businesses.

Edwards's strategy is very simple: docking the design departments and shoes brands of colleges and Universities: universities can get internship opportunities for off campus teachers and top brands, and brands can find potential talents ahead of time. Regular joint competitions can also increase the exposure of brand names.

The curriculum here is very tight - it lasts 14 hours every day in three or four weeks, including consumer research, material research, and board.

This setting is deliberate, because "the design industry is so cruel, you have to stay up late to catch up with the project", and "the company's pace of work is not" start "," stop "," start "," stop ", but has been in progress.

The design of high performance sneakers is also much more complicated than ordinary fashion shoes.

"You are designing for athletes. First of all, you have to solve the performance problems, and think of ways to make them look good."

"The whole process is as complex as building a house or making a car, and the materials used are very diverse, and the designer must realize that the shoes are the basis of the whole body."

Even so, according to fastcompany.com reports, the number of applicants is still large, with an average of 850 applicants per 18 places. Some are high school students (but must be over 18 years old). Others are already studying in schools such as Parsons and MIT, but they want to know the details of the design of the shoes.

Student.

For these students, besides being able to learn professional knowledge and experience directly from people who work in Nike, Adidas and Under Armour for decades, the biggest temptation is Pensole's commercialization speed of designer's creativity.

For example, this year they launched a project called "Fueling the Future of Footwear" with Foot Locker and Asics. After the completion of the course, the final winning works can be put on the store in Foot Locker in September 17th - that is to say, it takes 3 weeks to display only 3 minutes and minutes, and these 3 minutes may change the life of a designer.

However, Edwards said in an interview with thehundreds.com that he did not plan to expand enrollment quickly.

"I am not interested in size.

People come to Pensole because they can afford to learn here.

So it is not the best students gathered here, but the people who have the ability and willingness to design.

They need an environment and stronger people to grow together.

Just like I was in Nike.