PENSOLE World Sneaker Championship Diaries: Day 6

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 ADIDAS

Roster: Dexter Sulit, Claudia Lopez, Daniel Raes and Marcus Taylor (CMF)
Today was a day of exploration: exploration of ideas, of inspirations and of collaborative knowledge. We were tasked with sketching 12 four inch concept ideas. This may not seem like a lot, and in the grand scheme of things it’s not, but there’s more pressure here. Pressure to compete with the talent present, pressure to leave a mark, pressure to prove that you are worthy of one of the limited spots in the footwear industry. Suddenly 12 footwear sketches turned into a great task that would be daunting to any young designer. Luckily, this is a place to learn and improve so no matter what your sketches look like today, you can be sure they will look exponentially better by the end of these four weeks.

Inspiration can never be understated and working with our team CMF provides a pool of ideas for finished products in the distant future Each sample shoe we have been provided has been picked up, turned over and spun around more times than we can count, but when the product is in our hands the spark of ideas is always near Speaking of the spark of ideas, Red Bull has hooked us up with a supply of ideation nectar. I might add that this fridge was filled to the brim a week ago..