Sources of Inspiration and the (overrated) Importance of Trends

I realized that I would be a good shoe designer when I recognized that I could sketch shoe after shoe without struggling to find ideas for a new design.  They would just come naturally, almost like someone who is a good writer or speaker; the words, or in my case designs, would just come naturally, or at least it seemed that way.

These days that skill definitely gets put to the test each and every season.  Sometimes I look back on the work I have done thus far and realize how many shoes are getting churned out, and then look at how many designs that for whatever reason do not get used.  Will there ever be a time when I run out of designs?  I don’t think so, as long as I continue to have inspiration.

A few times people have asked me about inspiration, where do I get inspiration, where do my ideas come from?  Sometimes its really small things, that from the outside may be insignificant, and sometimes its things that are completely unrelated to footwear.

I have a few resources that I can always count on for inspiration or to act as a catalyst to the creative process.  Starting with a visit to Core77, an industrial design discussion forum that covers all kinds of topics from packaging to footwear to automotive, just as a way to stay connected to design in general, see what fellow designers are talking about, things they like, things they don’t like, and get my mind thinking deeper than the face value of a particular item.  It’s also a great place to get exposed to new designs or ideas.

Another resource I love is the website ffffound.com, I wont take the time to explain the concept of the site, but there are just tons of images of all kinds of “stuff” on there.  I love browsing through to find things that may inspire an outsole design, or a material print, or a footbed graphic, or even just to use as a visual representation of a concept.   I have come across tons of images, like the snow white/apple laptop, that inspire me.  I may not be able to explain the exact philosophical reasoning behind it, but I just think its cool.  It’s creative and clever, it’s adding a single visual element and changing the entire narrative.  Taking something that is already known, understood and expected, and putting a twist on it.  Its nothing new to put a sticker on a laptop, its nothing new to have snow white holding an apple, that story has been told before…  but not like this.  That’s how I like to look at the challenge of creating a new set of shoes.  Technically, I keep doing the same thing over and over that has already been done before, but I want to tell the story in a new way, with a twist that that will make that connection with people when they see a wall of shoes.

Inspiration can come from anywhere; one of the biggest misconceptions I run into sometimes is that because I design ‘non-athletic’ footwear, my designs are supposed to follow fashion trends.  First off, I hate fashion trends, not that I don’t take note or stay aware of them, or even follow them at times (Zubaz pants? Really?) but just the idea of them bothers me at times.  Trends and fashions come and go, that’s the nature of them, they are applauded one day then ridiculed the next, but a good design should stand above trends.

It would seem almost unfair to say that my inspiration comes from cars, or from fashion, or architecture or anything like that.  There may be times when I may create a design element that is directly related to an architectural element, but most times its because I want to try and create that element of surprise and deliver something unexpected and hopefully someone will think its kinda cool.  The creative and the clever, not the loudest or the most different, inspires me.  It’s not the architecture that inspired me, that’s only a vehicle to try and deliver something unexpected, like the snow white laptop (which probably drew more inspiration from Banksy than Disney).  I could make something up about how the music of so and so inspired me, how I saw a Jean Paul Gaultier runway show that instantly gave me a vision of a great shoe, but for me that’s not really how it works; to say that would take away from, and even be disrespectful to the design process that I use to try to create great products.

I will always be looking at gizmodo to see what new technology is out there,  automotive magazines to discover the hottest car designs and at photography, and fine art and from time to time I even look at other shoes.   Ok maybe I look at shoes more than anything, but ultimately I’m just looking for something that I think is cool, something that is timeless, something that hopefully cannot one day be deemed uncool; something that 15 years in the future will carry the same meaning and represent the same thing it did on day 1.   That’s what inspires me and that kind of stuff can be found all over the place if you keep your eyes open.

Maybe it’s just me but I think that b-boys will always be cool, regardless of “dance trends”, and that if we all could just snap our fingers and have the ability to breakdance we probably would (right Will?).  But the Macarena will never be cool again and we will all be embarrassed that we ever did that dance.  Plus b-boys usually have dope shoes.

-Alan