Performance Product Design + Wearables

This immersive, hands-on studio course introduces students to the fundamentals of designing and producing athletic footwear.

Students will produce key deliverables of the footwear design process, beginning with trend research, target end users, benchmarking existing products, insight generation, followed by ideation, concept exploration drawings, and the creation of study models.

The curriculum emphasizes form and feature development, problem solving, material and color selection, and the development of technical control drawings.

Students will gain practical experience by utilizing both traditional and advanced manufacturing techniques, exposing them to the footwear design industry.

At the end of the course, students will present a low-fidelity prototype, a CMF (Color, Material, Finish) board, specification documents, and a process book that captures their design journey and outcomes.

The course is structured to reflect best practices and equips students with an entry level foundation in performance footwear design.