walking the earth . . .

people put their foot to the ground everyday without even thinking about it or being consciously aware of what’s happening; the behavior that we call walking can also be described as a physical repetitive motion of a body falling forward. usually people are wearing some sort of boot, shoe or sandal and if their inside, especially in their own space, they might be wearing only sox or just going barefoot. kevin crowley, of unstitched utilities and pratt id instructor for shoe design, has infected me with some of his passion about footwear and walking the earth. talking with kevin reminded of a wonderful project that i had team taught with eike wintzer, in the industrial design program at wentworth institute of technology. the point of departure for the entire two section, semester long adventure were somewhat common, utilitarian and everyday objects: mere shoes

we explored with our two sections of junior design students traditional as well as digital approaches to drawing & photography. the course was somewhat like stone soup and we began the cooking with our students without telling them completely the expectations for our outcomes and deliverables. the most important idea we wanted to convey was that images (drawings, photographs) can say things without words. that form communicates. the way something looks gives information to the viewer. to expand on this slightly, think about all the possibilities of telling and shaping a story by determining the visual information through size, shape, page position, page orientation and the space on the page, et cetera. there’s an understanding of a language-like structure related to vision, a visual language with it’s own vocabulary of form that can communicate with and without words.

check out kevin crowley’s sneakers and his company that he started in conjunction
with two of his old friends: unstitched utilities

ny times | no canvas, no leather: a reboot for the sneaker . . .

the course essential competencies were to enhance the student’s understanding of the visual world and to develop strong visualization skills to solve complex design needs. the raw material of literally hundreds of drawings and photographs were use to execute a calendar concept for 2004. the final conceptual work was well received, in a critique presentation format where, wentworth design faculty as well as graphic design faculty from neighboring institutions were invited to attend and comment. design faculty pictured below are: tom starr (northeastern university), john krammer with the chair of graphic design, geoffrey fried (the art institute of boston), sam montague, rob meszaros, eike wintzer and myself (department of design & facilities, wentworth institute of technology).

instructors for visualization lll:
matthew burger • eike wintzer

industrial design juniors enrolled in visualization lll:
james bishai • luis cañas • anna engstöm • emmauel espirtu • juan flores •
bryce gibson • john hughes • brian jones • ryan kain • julie kowal • ross mehaffey • christopher parow • patrick pietrantonio • jay pupecki • holly reading •
matthew robles • brett smith • james sandiford • james zabala