FINAL CONCEPT DEISGN

After being inspired by several different sources I finally put my work together to form my final concept design. The last thing left to do was to colour it in using different kinds of media to bring out the effects of the materials used in the best way possible. For the soft leather part I used a black Promarker. Since it's a marker which blends its ink really well lines weren't present on my drawing giving off the effect of soft leather quite well. I then used a black chalk pastel for the suede parts of the shoe. The parts which I wanted to stick out, I decided to go for a gold marker which would match the design used for the Snitch wing. The Snitch wing itself was coloured in with gold marker and other parts left white making it stick out from the rest of the shoe which was just different tones of black separated by a white outline to show the different parts combined and match the rest of the shoe. As a last minute detail inspired by the Christian Louboutin shoe I made the inside of the shoe red. It only shows when the shoe is off but like that it gives off a more appealing design when not being worn. 

Side View

Back View / under-heel

Detail

The next important step was selecting the material for my design. I wanted it to look original and stand out but still be sophisticated.  As I did before I asked a few female friends what kind of material they would look out for when shoe shopping and what material they would think suitable for my design. I felt a woman's input would be good at this point seeing as I am designing a shoe for women and it needs to be as appealing as possible to them. The two top materials selected by women were leather and suede. I thought it would be interesting to combine two such materials together to bring out a unique design and result. I also went out to find samples of the kind of leather and suede I would like to use for my design. Below are pictures of the cut-outs I chose.

black suede cut out                                    soft  black leather cut out

After selecting the materials to be used I scanned my first sketch of the end concept design. With Photoshop I then created the design with the material trying to give a clearer outcome as of how I would like the shoe to look when completed. Unfortunately having only had 4 lessons of Photoshop this semester I tried my best to get the best outcome possible as an amateur with this program. 

When the above was finally completed I could finally move onto the next step; Art inspiration. From the very beginning I thought this might be the hardest part but I thought about something which could work greatly with what I've produced so far. Since Media and Design where out of the way, I could now focus on the art design. 

One of the first things I blogged for this concept when it came to research for this unit was the Christian Louboutin shoe. Personally, I love all black with that one item of clothing or accessory that sticks out and makes the outfit. I was always a fan of Christian Louboutin because of the black shoe with the red sole. It really stands out and is such a unique look liked by many people who understand fashion and style. Since I wanted my shoe to be mostly black, using both suede and leather, I could use the sole of the shoe to be creative and stand out even more. I thought this would work and look even better because of the fact that my shoe does not have the typical heel like a normal shoe would have but more of a twisted wedge. This leaves me with the back/sole of the shoe empty and flat leaving me able to design it more freely and also be seen clearly from the person standing behind the woman wearing this shoe. A particular artist I took a liking to was Paul Jackson Pollock, known as Jackson Pollock. ''He was a painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was well known for his uniquely defined style of drip painting.'' [Wikipedia, 2013].

 One of my favourite drip paintings I came across was a piece inspired by his work. I took a great liking to the bright various colours splashed onto eachother. I thought it would go nicely with the black shoe I designed. Plain and simple with a touch of over the top coloured art. 

With this design I cut out the part I thought would be most appealing against the heel of the shoe and stuck it on, giving my design some life and colour expressing my taste and likings. 

Quidditch for muggles.

Upon creating my designs I felt like I was limiting myself. I went through my previous blog posts seeing whereabouts I might be able to improve my design. Whilst scrolling down I remembered about the runway show I posted about when dealing with transformation with clothing. I posted a runway video of Alexander McQueen and a certain shoe used for this runway caught my eye. It was original, appealing and unique. 

Looking at this shoe I felt inspired and decided I could use it for my concept shoe design. All I needed to do was improve it and go round it. The design caught my eye straight away. I loved it's shape and thought it would fit my final piece nicely. Therefore I started coming up with a few sketches and finally decided on the shape I wanted to use. [See Below]

I finally decided to go along finishing off my concept with the design above. Original, new and fun. Finally having been inspired by Alexander McQueen's design, it was time to move onto the next step. Adding film/media into my concept design. I decided to go with Harry Potter more than the Life of Pi for my final piece. I chose to go along this path because I myself being a fan of harry potter will be more interested and motivated to create something with a better outcome along this film and not another. I also thought people might be more appealed to the design I had in mind for this piece along the lines of Harry Potter. 

Whilst doing research I came across a car many people are familiar with and one of its latest designs made by designer Jeremy Scott. The Smart Car. Looking at his design gave an idea which I could add onto my shoe design based on Harry Potter inspired by this car's unique look. 

For the above sketch I applied the inspiration I got from the smart's design; the wings. It gave it a sleek look and flow throughout the shoe making it more aesthetically pleasing. 

I then altered it based on the ideas I got from the Snitch in Harry Potter. The wings I drew on the shoe for my final concept design were inspired by The Golden Snitches wings, giving it a more serious look. 

''Quidditch is a fictional competitive sport in the wizarding world of the Harry Potter Universe. It is an extremely rough but very popular semi-contact sport, played by wizards and witches. Matches are played between two teams of seven players riding flying broomsticks, using four balls and six elevated ring-shaped goals, three on each side of the Quidditch pitch (field). In the Harry Potte runiverse, Quidditch holds a fervent following similar to the position that association football holds as a globally popular sport.''

'' In the films, the wings on the Snitch are gold. The winged Snitch is enchanted to hover, dart, and fly around the pitch, avoiding capture while remaining within the boundaries of the playing area.''

 [Wikipedia, 2013]

I carried out further research by showing a few female friends a couple of shoes on Google and asking which style they prefer when looking out for a shoe. The majority went for the the modern 6 inch heel pump. Stylish, elegant, and modern with a classic touch. I started designing the shoe and was trying to figure out how I'd go about the print. When it came to film, I got inspired by two films in particular; Harry Potter by J.K Rowling and Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Two things which really stuck out to me where the snitch within the films of Harry Potter and the Tiger in Life of Pi. They caught my attention; graceful yet so much to them. I started to design the shoe and put a print of a tiger opening its mouth and the heel being part of its tooth or a similar effect to the design of Puma, but replacing it with an enlarged coloured tiger jumping out of the shoe itself.  The shape of the shoe was, as previously mentioned, inspired by the poster of 'The Devil wears Prada' and the Christian Louboutin shoe. For the front platform of the shoe I got inspired by two different things. I like the concept and design or Parquet flooring and thought it might look nice put onto a shoe. Infact I got inspired from this when looking at pictures of interior design projects. I also got inspired by the shoe advertised in Nicki Minaj's song video ''Super Bass''. I was still to see where to add in my inspiration of art to this design.

Tumblr, 2012-2013, Interior Design. [online] Accessed 4 January 2013

Youtube, Super Bass - Nicki Minaj, 2013. [online] PRINT SCREEN. Accessed 4 January 2013

Inspiration for style of shoe - Photo taken by myself. 2012

[Inspiration from puma and Life of Pi - and how I planned on putting the tiger onto the shoe.]

This was my first sketch attemp to get the shape of the shoe I wanted to do use for my design. 

This was my second sketch trying to add in some details from where I got inspired and which I wanted to portay onto my shoe design concept.

Fresh Start

Whilst looking back on my work I was still quite confused as to how I wanted to proceed with my concept. I took a look at my blog with one of my unit tutor's, Ms.Sharon Abela. She liked the idea however thought it might be a bit too cliche'.. a bit too mainstream. Looking at it over again, scrolling through my work I agreed. Even though it was a good idea, it wasn't anything new. the design and inspiration might have been original but the way I went around designing the shoe wasn't; So it was time to look back and reflect and see where I can improve my work. My initial idea for my concept design was to come up with an original sneaker which I would like myself. Thinking it over I thought it would be best to design a woman's shoe; a design which in my opinion will be able to open up more windows when it comes to the design. With a woman's shoe there is much more to portray and I think I can express my creativity better. Looking at my previous research, not only within this unit but also in that of my other tutor Ms.Vella, I took a great liking to the signature shoe of Christian Louboutin. A classy shoe, loved, wanted and appreciated by many fashionistas and fashion icons. They're simple, yet elegant and look better than many other rival designer shoes; matter of opinion of course. I initially got inspiration from the shoe on the poster of the film 'The Devil Wears Prada'. Simple, elegant, and it portrays the title in the shoe itself.

[Photo taken by Me]

IMDb, 1990-2012. The Devil Wears Prada. [online] Available at: <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0458352/> [Accessed 16 December 2012]

Concept Sketch

Since I myself am not very familiar with how heels would work and what one would need to take into consideration when designing them, I decided to just sketch out a few possible designs of different running shoes that I like myself and that I think would go quite well in relation to my design. I took into consideration a few different style of shoe like basketball, running shoes and not the cliche Converse or Vans.

over here I also tried photo-manipulation using Sharpie markers. I did this to get a clue on what shoe I would like to design and If what I had in mind would work out. I'm also giving photo-manipulation a go because if I don't go for the design-on-shoe approach I think I'll aim towards making a poster.

Inspired

Since my initial idea was to transfer a painting onto a shoe or get inspiration from a piece of art, I thought I'd do some research on other ideas similar to mine that people have already done, not neccessarily on shoes but also on clothes.

Converse are the shoes that used a similar approach as to what I have in mind. Above are a few examples. These four designs were clearly influenced by pop art and were initially what got me into thinking about the whole picture-on-shoe design. some designs like that of the I LOVE  motif are iconic. Not only would you find it on a shoe, but nowadays with the whole new craze, you will find it on jumpers t-shirt, hoodies, backpacks and more. It all started off with the '' I <3 NY'' but it is now found almost everywhere saying I love almost anything, from several different countries to several different products. The bottom left corner black converse has what seems to be blue splattered paint all over it. That design even though unusual and probably unattractive to some due to its 'dirty' look, is inspired by the way _______ used to paint. The top one on the left is also influenced by pop artist Roy Lichtenstein. 

other examples of different art on clothes:

Incredible Things, 2012, Converse Pop Art Collection. [online] Available at: <http://www.incrediblethings.com/style-and-gear/converse-pop-art-collection/> [Accessed 16 December 2012]

cwhatch, 2007, I Love New York. [online] Available at: <http://www.ilovenewyork.cwhatch.com/> [Accessed 13 December 2012]

Wikipedia, 2012, Pop art. [online. Available at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_art> [Accessed 16 December 2012]