Best foot forward
Published Thu 4 Jun 2009
Nike have released a new 'green' sports shoe, made using shoe offcuts. Ann-Sofi Holmgren caught up with Nike's, Senior Creative Designer to talk about it.
When the NBA (National Basketball Association) stars started playing basketball in footwear made from recycled material, commercial success for sports shoe manufacturer Nike was likely to follow. Creating such a novel ‘green shoe’ concept involved 3D technology from Autodesk, as well as smart marketing and a vast Research & Development effort.
“3D was one of the key tools that helped us get this project started”, explains Kasey Jarvis, Senior Creative Designer at Nike Footwear. The shoes were named Trash Talk, picking up on a term in the jargon used amongst athletes before important games or events. But what the pro’s actually lace up on their feet is far removed from trash. Behind the initiative lies extensive research work. The choice of materials, the strength and durability of the shoes and the means to manufacture them, had to be carefully investigated. For example, since the stars are tall, heavy athletes participating in an extremely intense sport, the forces acting on the shoes – where the test shoes are made in a modest size 13 – are huge.
Design inspiration
Some five years ago, former General Motors designer Kasey Jarvis made an unconventional leap from the automotive to the footwear industry, bringing with him in-depth knowledge of a series of Autodesk design programs: Autodesk AliasStudio, Showcase, Sketchbook Pro and Maya.
As a Senior Designer at Nike Footwear, Kasey Jarvis has had to meet challenges quite different from those in the auto industry. But life as a designer is all about finding inspiration from unexpected sources, he says.
A notebook, always at hand for jotting down new ideas and impressions, is his constant companion in the search for future concepts. Inspiration for soles may be found in bike tyres. And a unique example is the shoe that was designed with inspiration from his wife’s seamless bra.
Interactive development
Kasey Jarvis’ seemingly bottomless treasure trove of ideas, as well as his deep knowledge of 3D modelling, was of course more than welcome at Nike.
“I have always understood 3D and found it natural to work and think in that way,” he says. “At school I learned how to draw using the computer. I also had an old Atari at home and experimented with a joystick in order to draw more freely. Today, with all the amazing programs for design and visualisation available on the market, the possibilities are endless.”
The digital approach to sketching and drawing in 3D, as well as being able to visualise the results using the same data, makes the development of a new shoe concept a truly interactive journey, easy to communicate both inside and outside the company in a fascinating way.
Scrapheap challenge
A journey of a different kind, for educational purposes, was made by Kasey Jarvis to Nike’s manufacturing partners soon after his appointment. His attention was drawn to the mountains of textile scrap that was produced from the manufacturing process. Since modern sports footwear is a wonder of applied materials technology, these scrap mountains contained many different kinds of material. And the pieces were small – the producers know how to make the most out of their expensive ingredients. The heaps of scrap were the inspiration for a unique new “green” product line, to be made from these leftovers, saving resources and benefiting the environment.
After due consideration, making a “patchwork” shoe from waste material turned out to be a smart decision. But the challenges were great. When the Canadian NBA pro Steve Nash first showed interest, the concept was taken to the next level.
“The challenge became even bigger! There is an enormous stress on shoes used in pro leagues like the NBA. Any failures would be seen by a global audience on prime time television,” says Kasey Jarvis, who was determined to overcome all obstacles.
Being a designer, he sought a design solution: “When you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail. We understood that the shoe was doable if only we designed it right. We would need optimum sizes for the patches, with a variety of colours and textures all carefully stitched together. In such large design puzzle work, 3D was an important tool that enabled us to quickly communicate a unique solution to a complex problem.”
For Steve Nash, unique shoes were produced. Nash wanted all white shoes for home games and all black for away games. To make the idea of a patchwork shoe real, different material textures were used. Steve Nash played the entire 2007/2008 season in his Trash Talks, and the team moved on into the play-offs. This season he plays in a newly designed pair.
The 3D advantage
For Nike Footwear, as for so many other manufacturing companies, integrated 3D design has brought a new era. Kasey Jarvis jokingly refers to his “old school” industry colleagues as “designosaurs” in view of their more traditional design methods, but immediately adds: “For all of us, the new 3D tools are a breakthrough, enabling designers to successfully apply their in-depth 2D skills in a 3D environment.”
Model-based 3D design, with the integration of sketching and drawing, creates shortcuts and increases understanding, he summarises. Within Nike, major advantages accrue when new concepts are presented internally and also when production is about to commence. Although Kasey Jarvis stresses that physical prototypes are required during the decision-making process to evaluate factors such as durability, fit and performance, the digital 3D uppers are very effective for the early stages of concept exploration and design development.
“Today, we can get a first prototype presented that is 85 per cent correct, since our intentions can be plainly seen from 3D modelling. That’s compared to about 60 per cent correct without using 3D. Naturally, this saves both time and the number of iterations required, increasing ROI and quality as well.”
Brand leader
Other advantages are the possibilities to simulate the result of a particular design. Lightweight shoes have always been a priority within Nike, especially for elite runners and professionals. There was a time when even the purpose of the trademark Nike “swoosh” came up for discussion – after all, it made the shoe heavier! Any suggestion that it should be dropped was however overruled. Functionality, sure. But branding is also a must.
And branding has been a success story for Trash Talks. The debate on how to position the recycled shoes in the market was intense. Should they be sold as a cheaper shoe for children? Marketed through the large retail chains? What did the target group look like?
With the marketing boost achieved by the top NBA athletes, it was finally decided that the shoes should be produced in limited editions and sold through the most fashionable sneaker stores to real sneaker fans – a strategy that has proved extremely successful.
Trash Talks and other recycled Nike products have so far only made a small dent in those mountains of waste, says Kasey Jarvis. But the initiative has spawned a whole raft of additional recycling ideas and concepts. The waste could also be transformed into artificial lawns, plastic basketball nets and bags – as a humble start.
“This is just the beginning. We are constantly developing new ideas and concepts, and not only within recycling. This summer, for example, there may be an interesting shift coming up in running shoes,” he adds intriguingly.
