(bit late but) rip

looking at wedge shapes: still so fresh..mcqueen fw06

not so ethical

but morbidly fascinating. hoof shoes by iris schieferstein who makes "art" from animals. via fadmashion.com

laser quest

currently experimenting with laser cutting

interessant..

Interesting article on Design for Dissassembly on Core 77

eco (money) pump?

So just in the process of harrassing the company that makes "liquid wood" arboform (which is a resin derived from natural polymers and fibres and which has the appearance of wood) to send me some for prototyping, and I discovered sergio rossi have beat me to the chase and made an "eco pump". I'd seen arbo used for a heel way back at the beginning of this project (which would appear to be this) but it would seem rossi have attempted to create an entirely "eco" pump, and I'm of divided opinion. Having put so much research and effort into my work I'm slightly irked by the fact it's claimed on certain website's that their entire shoe is biodegradeable while clearly of a traditional construction (stiffeners, glues...???) and that they've sourced leather from a tannery which is "eco-sensitive" - what does that mean??? On the one hand I guess any improvement is an improvement? But on the other I'm not convinced about how "eco" it really is. And there are no rules to really govern this at the moment. Is it just being "less bad" rather than really "eco efficient"? hum.. boring design either way.

on todays menu..plastics!

currently researching into more sustainable material options for footwear components and I came across this dude..

eco stampede

Sculptures from reclaimed material by Sayaka Kajita Ganz via notcot.org

eco roadkill

cool paper art work from the slash and burn series by amber bravo via design cove

my deformed feet

I went to scan my lasts today which will basically give me a digital image of them I can use to design my sole units. Being the geek I am I found it fascinating as it's basically like a box with a scanner in it which laser scans the object in there and this then appears on screen. While I was there, out of curiosity I did a couple of foot scans just to see the difference between the foot being flat and in a heel. I've been researching into the effects of wearing heels in a bid to decide how high I should design mine - the idea being that they're comfy, not causing damage, you can walk in them easily and they're still sexy. After much trotting about in the shoes I have I came to the conclusion that 4inches was a good height, especially once you get a platform on there, and anything higher really gives me pain. Interesting to see how my feet are pretty much on the way to being deformed by heels though..."hammer toe" where your toes start to grip since you're balancing on such a small area seems to be a prime suspect..ewwww!

And for the record I don't have chunks out of my ankles, webbed feet or (hopefully) kankles, the scanner seems to add some lumps in here and there..:p

play time

Today I happened upon an exciting discovery - that some stuff I bought for modelling heels (which is too soft..) is actually brilliant for customising lasts. I've been intending to alter them now that they'd arrived since I want to really make my own silhouettes, but have been a bit tentative about shaving bits off and so on incase of making a horrible mistake. Well this stuff was great for letting me sculpt the toes I really wanted, and let me change the shape constantly until I was happy. Tomorrow I will cover it in some other stuff which will set it to make it stiff for ready to make my shoes..good times!

bon video

Currently developing quite a complicated wedge sole unit design for one of my prototypes I've been thinking about ways I can explain the concept behind it quickly, visually and in an interesting way, since my drawings tend to be a bit sketchy. I've wanted to do a video for quite a while but not knowing anything really about making videos I may well be being slightly overambitious here. I did however find this video by Bonsajo (via Notcot) which is interesting in that whilst it's quite fun and graphicy, it uses music and CAD files and I can see something along these lines working well as an explanation of my product -maybe combined with something a little more conceptual like the bubble video I wrote about previously. Better start learning about video production now then...

Vanishing Point from Bonsajo on Vimeo.

adiboot