Essay on My Favourite Shoes

In this essay, I will address the design and characteristics of two objects of my choosing how they compare, and contrast with each other, and also what effect they have on me. The objects I have chosen are two different types of Nike products, specifically made for two different purposes. One of the objects I am choosing is the trainer style of footwear, which aims to create comfortable wear and is designed for casual use only. The other is football boots/ sportswear which cater to a sporting activity, meaning they have more requirements for specific needs. I have specifically chosen to look at Nike, a global leading brand in clothing. According to Forbes list (https://www.forbes.com/powerful-brands/list/), Nike is ranked 14th in most valuable brands, this proves that as a company, Nike must be respected for their products, and with the brand being so popular, customers expect quality that they would expect from a company so large.

I have chosen to discuss Nike’s shoe designs because they have had a big impact on my childhood and my journey into adulthood too. I’m also certain that this will be a similar case for most people worldwide as all sport is encouraged from a very early age and Nike Inc. is the leading influence on the industry. My first memory with Nike was when I was learning to play football and my whole training gear was produced by Nike, to this day I have a special connection to the brand and continue to purchase their equipment above any others. The length of depth into their decision-making for each aspect of each shoe reflects their success in the industry and I wanted to express how each decision influences performance, style, comfort, and therefore their high number of sales.

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Nike, Inc. is well known worldwide for producing a wide range of sports equipment but their first set of products were running shoes. Nike Air Max is a line of shoes first released by Nike, Inc. in 1987 and it changed the way companies manufacture and design running shoes. With the new Air Max trainers, a new technology was introduced to improve comfort for the customer and is identified by their midsoles, incorporating flexible urethane pouches filled with pressurized gas to enforce a cushion to each step taken. The Air Max was conceptualized by Tinker Hatfield, with the underlying technology being created and patented by M. Frank Rudy. Nike has also designed multiple different shoes for different sports to benefit performance for the user. This spreads their influence amongst the sporting community and increases their popularity with a wider range of athletes. It also makes them dependable to be able to design very high-standard products and to be able to cater their expertise to every sport. “If you combine Nike and its Jordan Brand, the company has more than 90 percent of the basketball market. Nike reported $4.35 billion in wholesale equivalent basketball sales in fiscal, 2018, about 14 percent of its overall sales.” - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-21 This proves that Nike is producing excellent in terms of sporting equipment and gives me the incentive that I can rely on them for a quality product. Recently, Nike introduced cricket shoes called ‘Air Zoom Yorker’, designed to be 30% lighter than their competitors, and in 2008, Nike introduced the ‘Air Jordan XX3’, a high-performance basketball shoe designed with the environment in mind. Since 2012, Nike has dominated the basketball shoe market with percentages rising each year. As of 2017, sales percentages were standing at 76.8 percent compared to second place Adidas with only 8.3 percent. “Nike’s mission is what drives us to do everything possible to expand human potential. The brand does that by creating groundbreaking sports innovations, by making our products more sustainably, by building a creative and diverse global team, and by making a positive impact in communities where we live and work.” – Profiles: Nike. Images Business of Fashion, 19 Nov. 2018. This quote is taken from an article and it expresses the thought behind every decision the company makes and how they strive to design their products as the best of the best. This captivated me even more into the company and how they make their products due to the sheer innovative and aspiring ideas behind each design and how they want to improve each time.

My first object (figure 1.) is one of my most favored possessions and one I regard highly as the best design I have purchased for myself in the past year. These shoes are named the ‘Nike React Element 55’ and its design instantly caught my eye as it is like none other than I have seen before. The specifics of the shape and the technology/materials for this shoe have been carefully developed by professional designers to improve the function which is to be as comfortable as possible. I remember the first time trying on these shoes after purchase and instantly my first thought was how comfortable they are and how light they are on my feet. The materials used mainly consist of a nylon fabric for the body of the shoe, giving it a more stretchy and breathable feel than their other products and this is also what makes it so lightweight and comfortable. This is the first time Nike has used nylon for the body of one of their products and the response to the release reflects how well their research has paid off.

“Many classic Nike shoes were born from a simple desire: to make running and walking more comfortable. Work on the shoe began by pressure-map-testing individuals who walk heavily throughout the day. These maps show the points where feet experience the most fatigue from commuting, running errands and otherwise. Designers then drilled holes into these spots on running shoe soles and repeated the process with Nike React foam for added comfort.” – https://www.nike.com/gb/launch/t/behind-design-react-element-87  This quote is from the Nike website and shows what’s behind the design of the shoe and how much research and experimentation Daryl Matthews, a Nike sportswear innovation designer, put into getting this final product. Many characteristics make it an innovative design and make it work tremendously as a running shoe, including the likes of the indents and the extrusions on the sole, providing more grip and providing more stability when encountering different surfaces. The extrusion on the soles of the shoe helps with traction and friction intended to benefit the performance when running and helps the user in wet and icy conditions. There is also protective foam on the inside to prevent blisters and rubbing on the heel, this is essential as the heel is one of the most vulnerable parts of the foot and as the customer is going to either use them for everyday, casual use or for exercise purposes such as running and working out, this is a necessity that Nike have taken into account and further improves the design for its purpose.

Combined with suede accents, the Nike React logo, and rubber outsole pods, the shoe represents a powerful and performance-focused intersection of old and new. - https://www.nike.com/gb/launch/t/behind-design-react-element-87

The starting point for the silhouette of the shoe was derived from two simple objects: a slab of foam and a drill. Designers and engineers began drilling holes into the foam, experimenting with different depths and foam densities to determine the ratio for optimal comfort. Nike designers successfully created an algorithmic pattern that could be applied to the outsole and the React Element has been designed to be more suited for lifestyle activities and prioritizing comfort and aesthetics. The shoe has an elevated sole, providing more support and more comfort for the user. With the shoe being slightly elevated this allows room for some protective foam to be implemented into the bottom of the shoe and prevents the inside of the shoe from wearing away, resulting in a sustainable cushion that will always protect the sole and ankle of the user.

About modernity and modernism, these shoes break the correlation between most shoe designs and demonstrate a new technique in terms of both manufacturing and design. They provide brand-new technology through manufacture, they break the mold of classical design through their choices of materials and they’re also very easily mass-produced, selling worldwide to a vast range of customers.

As well as modernity, there is also a juxtaposition of materials in the design of this product. When exposed to light in nocturnal surroundings, specific parts of the shoe reflect the light and are visible to those around them. This is included throughout lots of Nike Inc. products and is an innovative aspect of their designs and is juxtaposed against the more common and mundane materials used by most brands and manufacturers. As well as the implementation of reflective materials, the shoe also bears waterproof materials in certain parts. At the toe and heel of the shoe, some rubber casings are covering the outsides. This prevents water from being splashed upwards after stepping onto a wet surface and therefore protects the longevity of the body of the shoe, sustaining aesthetics.

Onto my next object, football boots, and sports shoes in general, have become a universal essential and the demand for their design to be perfect is pivotal to Nike’s success in the industry. They need to be tough, impenetrable, sustainable, and among all, stylish. The design of football boots has developed heavily throughout the years and companies have managed to improve performance for the athletes in near enough every aspect of the shoe. The cuts and arrangements of the studs of the boot are crafted to suit specific surfaces on which they’ll be playing and they also depend on the position the player is playing in. For example, hard pitches require either a basic sneaker sole or a plastic stud that’s been molded onto the bottom of the shoe, whereas a grass or wet pitch usually requires screw-in metal studs for enhanced grip on the soft surface. One of the most recent stud designs is called blades, they have soles with bladed studs shaped in different directions to try and minimize ankle injury and improve grip for the athlete. With the development and addition of such variation in a singular aspect of the shoe, Nike Inc. is constantly coming up with new innovative ideas to try and prioritize the athlete’s health as well as their performance.

As mentioned earlier, Nike is the main influencer in the sports industry and rules the basketball industry in particular, obtaining over 70 percent of sales since 2012 and succeeding every other brand to be the common favorite. In the football industry, it is much closer between the two giants Nike and Adidas however, Nike is still on top and seems to be improving every year. In the South Africa World Cup of 2010, only 44 percent of players wore Nike footwear. That percentage jumped to 53 percent in 2014 for the World Cup in Brazil and rose to 65 percent in the Russia World Cup in 2018. This proves that Nike is producing more and more influential designs and more and more people and athletes are recognizing their efforts to improve their products. Considering ergonomics, anthropometrics, aesthetics, and materials, Nike produces brilliant quality sports equipment and amongst everything, is sustainable. Not all chosen materials have a performance benefit, for example, 75 percent of all Nike’s football shoes and apparel now contain some recycled plastic. They have diverted nearly 5 billion plastic bottles from landfills since 2012 and at least 12 of those bottles form the backbone for every one of Nike’s federation kits used in the Russia World Cup of 2018. - https://news.nike.com/news/sustainability-football-kits For all of Nike’s jerseys, worn by the nations of England, Brazil, Croatia, Portugal, and more, the process involves melting down 12-18 plastic bottles. This provides even more incentive to purchase Nike’s products as there is a guarantee and a commitment to sustainability.

There is a reason for the dominance of Nike products amongst the sporting community and through their innovative, creative, and groundbreaking ideas and technology; they don’t seem to be stopping any time soon. Their reign in the industry is sustained for the future with the help of products discussed in this essay and their commitment to the community at a global scale continues to boost their reliability.