I'm still working on a more complete post with detailed notes about the development of the 8.4 FGX, but in the meantime, I came across some early pullover pics I would like to share.

The initial idea for the 8.4 FGX was a lightweight, breathable mesh football boot, inspired by our indoor shoe, the 9.3.

Click the Read more link below for more pics of the initial concept and pullover.



As development progressed in consultation with sales, testing and marketing, the concept evolved into the current 8.4 FGX, for a number of reasons, including the commonly wet weather and low demand for mesh football boots in our main markets of northern Europe and Scandinavia.

Below, you can clearly see the pattern inspiration and material influence in these first samples of the 8.4, taken directly from the 9.3 indoor shoe with a nylon screen mesh over top an airmesh quarter with hot melt TPU details.

Following my recent Photoshop rendering tutorial I've got a lot of great responses and questions. One of which I thought I would address here.




Q. "How do you render a white or light color shoe without it looking dirty?"

A. It all depends on the consitency of your shading and highlights. You can also play with the overal lighting and general mood to help your rendering pop out.

I threw together the above rendering as an example. As you can see, the 8.4 PIO FGX is a white pearl color, not 100% bright white, but the same would still hold true. Shading is done in a warmer tone (not black) to give a more natural feel, and the darker background and reflective floor help me get away with a darker upper shading without looking too strange.

Hope this helps!

R

The rendering does look white, but you do get the impression you are looking at a light colored shoe, i hope.

UPDATE - I have just arranged my attendance at the Volvo SportsDesign Forum/Award Ceremony 3 Feb, 2007 in Munich and at the ISPO Fair 4-5 Feb.

If anyone is going to the forum/fair and would like to hook up, feel free to drop me a line at rkuchinsky@gmail.com

R

In conjunction with 2007 IHF Handball World Cup now going on in Germany (more World Cup action/campaign info to follow), our latest Indoor 2007 catalog is back fresh from the printer. I posted earlier some of the process and photoshoot from this catalog, here, in part is the final catalog.

The final printed catalog turned out really great. Special thanks again, to Martin Kristensen, hummel graphic designer and Anders Kavin, photographer.

The catalog is presale catalog, only available to customer and hummel dealers.

Click the Read More link below for select pics of pages from the Indoor 2007 Catalog.

The 8.4 PIO FGX has just been nominated for a Volvo SportsDesign Award to be presented at ISPO 2007, February 3 in Munich.

The competition honors the best products focused on the theme "Personal Design".

Check out the competition here Volvo SportsDesign AWARD

Concurrently with the pattern development, colorway options and material specification is worked out.

To develop narrow down the colorway and final spec, first, a wide range of color options are quickly explored. Using the outline drawings of the style in illustrator, a number of different directions can be discussed and looked at.

Click the Read More link below for more pics and info.

Normally, the footwear designer will first create many options, then later reduce the options and further develop the stronger ideas, to present to Sales and Marketing for consultation and final selection.

Once the colorways for each style have been explored, and an overall line plan direction identified (at hummel, because we have such small collections, with few styles, I try to create a strong collection theme or plan in colors/materials), material and color specification is determined.




This process involves picking the Pantone colors for each part and the corresponding material. At this stage, for simple shoes like these, an jpeg file is created from Illustrator with material callouts for the factory to follow.

Ive just finished an exclusive interview with Alan from Footy-Boots.com that is now posted. The interview discusses some of the thoughts behind the new football boots and the design and development process at hummel.

Link to Interview

Footy-Boots.com also has a nice review of the 8.4 PIO FGX as well.

8.4 PIO FGX review


www.footy-boots.com

To share, some more content from the upcoming Indoor 2007 catalog. These sketches are from the concept design of the new indoor shoe, 11.1 that features an integrated design assembly for ultimate fit.

More to come soon on this new concept.

The 8.4 PIO FGX was featured today on 3 great design/innovation websites! Check out the links.

BusinessWeek Innovation&Design (Design Snapshots halfway down the page)
Core77 Studio Bullits
Core77

As mentioned, the latest Indoor 2007 catalog will also feature a lot of design/development process work. Sketches, photos of sample, factory production, etc.

To capture the development process from the design studio perspective, another photosession session was set up, moving more than 10 boxes of papers, samples, binders and bits from our real office to a photo studio. Due to the tight space and lighting, it was impossible to capture our actual studio environment.

Click the Read More link below for more pics of the photosession and "design studio" pics.





As you can see (and I'll maybe post pics of our real studio sometime soon if possible), the studio shots capture all elements of the design process.

Quite a bit less messy than my real desk, perhaps, the studio environment is, indeed, one filled with a variety of materials, inspiration, binders, samples and bits of shoes.

Over christmas and just before New Years, things were busy here putting the catalog together for our latest Indoor 2007 Collection.

This catalog will be a special version of our normal presale catalog featuring great product photos, technical information and more. Inspired in part by the popularity of First Pullover, this catalog will also feature design/development process work.

I have been working to art direct the catalog, working closely with our in house graphic designer Martin Kristensen on the concept. An exciting part of this special catalog is also the image shots for a new campaign that brings the sex appeal back to what used to be one the most popular sports (hjandball) in Europe.

Click the Read More link below for more sneak peaks and images from the Indoor 2007 catalog photoshoot.




All photography is by Anders Kavin, well-known for the great product photos of previous footwear collections.





The image shots using the model were designed to communicate the main feature of our new shoe, fit. Using a series of provocative, suggested images, they shots engage the viewer and communicate visually key features of the new shoes.



Stand by for a later post with the design/development process shots, the final image shots from this photoshoot, sketches from the catalog, plus pics of the latest collection.