PENSOLE World Sneaker Championship Diaries: Day 15

This summer, 30 young students from all the around the world have come together in Portland, Oregon, determined to change the footwear game by embarking in the PENSOLE World Sneaker Championship. Assigned to teams and representing a diverse range of brands, boutiques and major corporations across the industry, they’ve began their journey to design a product that’s ready for retail. These are their stories.

TEAM PENSOLE

Roster: 30 students from around the world

Today, we’re doing things a little different. We had a deadline this morning, and as most designers know, the night before a deadline is almost certainly sleepless. This happened to prove true last night. In fact, a majority of the class is still working as I type. So, you’ll just be hearing from me but I assure you I will speak in the best interest of my classmates and friends.

We were tasked with five marker renderings of our finalized shoe design. ‘Finalized’ is a key word because often times it is hard to settle upon one idea because then you have to defend it and take ownership. This can be especially difficult when experienced designers critique your designs and remind you of just how much you have to learn. Friday was just such a day that we had to defend our ideas among a MVP field of designers.

We taped our sketches to the wall and stood back to take in the feedback. There were plenty of designers from Nike, some from Adidas and one pattern maker from the Danner boot company. It was a good mix of expertise and different jobs in the footwear industry. The great thing about dealing with professionals is that most, if not all, of their comments come from experience. When we critique each other as classmates it’s difficult because we are dealing in opinions and not facts. That same day we had a visit from Nike Footwear Design Recruiter Andy Croll.

Speaking with designers is a good way to figure out what it takes to get a job in the industry, but talking to a recruiter helps you know what you need. He focused on ways to separate yourself from the crowd of designers dreaming to work at Nike. The best way is to show the ways in which you are unique and what kinds of hobbies and interests you have. Creating a logo and putting that you like movies and peanut butter on your résumé is a good example. The logo identifies you as an individual in the sea of stock résumés and peanut butter and movies might be of similar interests to your soon to be boss. Make sure you are writing these tips down because they are top secret job obtaining shortcuts.

Andy Croll going over the Nike design recruitment process.

Job landing tip number two, designers love shoes but they’d rather talk about that petting zoo you started in North Dakota. Or, in other words, they want to see projects not related to footwear and hobbies they find interesting or have never heard of. They go through thousands of portfolios and if yours has something unique they’ll set it in the “hmm interesting” pile. Now that’s where you want to be. I’ll take an “hmm interesting” and an eyebrow raise over an industrial sized trash can any day.