One of the first apparel design courses I took at WVU was Intro to Footwear Design with Professor Craig Nelson. It was offered to Design Studies majors to teach us technical design and product development through a familiar medium: shoes.
Craig Nelson is an experienced product designer and then program director for WVU’s design department; he instructed us on the key parts of the manufacturing and design process. By the end of this course, all students were able to confidently render footwear in 2D illustrations and technical design packs.
The primary challenge behind this shoe design was creating the accompanying tech pack. Craig had designed shoes for Sketchers and lived abroad while working with manufacturers, and thus had high industry-level standards when it came to our tech packs.
He taught us how to use Adobe Illustrator to create professional-grade tech packs for our shoes, including materials, Pantone colors, cross-sections, and flat designs.
My final shoe design was a simple flat-sole skate shoe in a variety of color ways. I wanted to feature a logo on the design but didn’t want to incorporate real branding, so I dubbed my fake brand “Lorem Ipsum Shoe Company.”
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