Insight Archives - Interwoven

Bridging the Gap: Strategies for Collaboration Between Designers and Engineers

At Interwoven, we routinely collaborate with engineers to develop innovative products. The Apex Exosuit we developed with HeroWear is a great example of how powerful a design and engineering collaboration can be. They appreciate our commitment to creating a fantastic user experience, and we appreciate their expertise in developing a reliable product that really works. The line between design and engineering can be hazy, as demonstrated by this famously long and hotly debated Core 77 forum thread, “Do engineers really “design” anything?”

While some designers have a strong understanding of engineering principles, and some engineers have a strong understanding of design principles, it is rare to find professionals who are experts in both fields. Engineers specialize in engineering knowledge, designers specialize in design knowledge, and product development teams need both. In this Insight article we discuss what designers and engineers bring to the table and share key strategies for working with the other team. This article has two parts: part one contains tips for designers working with engineers and part two contains tips for engineers working with designers.

Value Added

We have found, with any collaboration, that the more each side appreciates the value the other side brings, and the more each side communicates with and invites the ideas of the other, the more successful the project is. In a product development team, synergy between designers and engineers is indispensable, with each discipline bringing distinct and complementary skills to the table. Designers play a key role in shaping the user experience, focusing on aesthetics, functionality, overall usability, and the big picture value of the solution. Their creativity and user-centric mindset contribute to crafting visually appealing and intuitive interfaces. Engineers serve as the architects who bring these designs to life, leveraging their technical expertise to implement and optimize functionalities. Their proficiency ensures that the product not only meets design expectations but also adheres to technical constraints and achieves optimal performance.

Part 1: Tips for Designers Working with Engineers

Acknowledge the Role of Engineers

In the collaborative landscape of product development, designers and engineers form a dynamic partnership to transform ideas into tangible realities. Engineers, often regarded as the interpreters of conceptual visions, play a pivotal role in translating proposals into functional, scalable, and reliable products. Some of the most iconic products of the 21st century came out of collaborations between designers and engineers, like the Nest Thermostat, developed by Nest designers (who were formerly Apple designers) and Google engineers.

Seek Their Contribution Early

Regardless of the abundance of engineers within a company, it is imperative to view them not only as useful resources but as the architects of foundational elements of a project. They are essential contributors to a product’s core functionality, speed, and scalability. Their innovation drives technological advancements and transforms a sheet of requirements into meaningful outcomes. Inviting engineers into the vision of the project at the start fosters excitement and ownership, keeping teams aligned and efficient. This tip works in both directions; having both teams on the same page from project inception results in powerful projects that develop efficiently. Each will see opportunities and potential pitfalls that the other might miss.

Understand their Constraints Early

Understanding the constraints of the engineering team is related to the previous strategy but so critical that we felt we needed to call it out separately. Engineering-savvy designers can understand engineering constraints early in the process to avoid becoming attached to or spending too long on impractical designs. By consulting engineers before finalizing designs, designers can ensure that creative ideas align with technical and time limitations, preventing wasted effort on unfeasible concepts. Ask them questions, and respect their answers.

Make Friends

To work seamlessly with engineers, designers can recognize the influential impact engineers can have on the development process. Convincing a small group of engineers can be the key to implementing a product idea. Establishing robust relationships and addressing design issues directly with engineers, rather than relying solely on formal channels, can expedite the problem resolution process exponentially. Quick, casual check-ins can catch major issues, clarify important constraints, inspire innovation, and more. Bonus: more friends.

Foster Design Appreciation

The atmosphere of collaboration improves when engineers value good design. Designers can either recruit engineers with a discerning eye for design or cultivate an understanding of design principles among existing engineering teams. This involves explaining design decisions, sharing values, and educating engineers on aligning their implementations with design intentions. This strategy reflects a broader need for an understanding of what design brings to the table; not just a pretty shell but a careful consideration of the functionality and usability of a product. Engineers care about this, too!

Communicate Design Evolutions

Designers can communicate the evolving nature of designs to save engineers from investing time in a solution that may undergo significant changes. Transparent discussions about potential modifications allow engineers to create more adaptable and flexible code. This means staying in close collaboration through the implementation phase to resolve issues promptly and to encourage a solution-oriented mindset in both teams. When communicating, consider adopting a format of modular workflows and roadmaps that will look familiar to engineers.

Be Meticulous

Meticulousness and attention to detail in design are crucial aspects that help anticipate and address potential issues during implementation. Designers are famous for caring about details, and engineers, though they may be focusing on different details, are as detail-oriented as designers, if not more so. To win the hearts of engineers, designers can demonstrate that they also care about engineering priorities. Considering edge cases, such as error states, user extremes, and transitions, not only enhances the overall design but also aids engineers in planning and estimating project timelines.

Part 2: Tips for Engineers Working with Designers

Learn the Lingo

As with navigating any new territory, learning a bit of the local language goes a long way. To effectively collaborate with designers, engineers can shift their communication focus from metrics to user-centric language. Instead of discussing optimizing conversion rates or increasing click-through rates, engineers can frame discussions around simplifying user interactions and ensuring a seamless user experience.

Recognize Design’s Diversity

Engineers can acknowledge the diverse strengths of designers and apply these strengths to the right problems. Understanding that design encompasses graphic design, interaction design, product design, and more, is crucial. The specialities present within a team may not be immediately visible. Recognizing that different designers excel in various areas fosters an appreciation for those skills and ensures that the right designers tackle the right problems, contributing to a more effective and well-rounded design team.

Understand Design’s Hierarchy

Designers operate at different levels, each with distinct responsibilities. From designing specific forms to crafting comprehensive systems, engineers can recognize the varying levels of design complexity. The more senior a designer is, the more likely they are to focus on abstract problem-solving, contributing to the overall vision and strategy of a product.

Solicit Feedback

The collaborative aspect of design thrives on critique and feedback, which is the cornerstone of design education and the design process. Engineers can enhance their collaboration with designers by encouraging regular feedback sessions. During the developmental stages of a project, designers benefit from interacting with their peers to refine ideas, while collaboration with engineers becomes more prominent during the execution phase. See also Part 1, Strategy 4: Make Friends.

Embrace Qualitative Data

Engineers need to understand that much of what designers value is challenging to measure quantitatively. A quality user experience, long-term sentiment, and overall delight are integral aspects that designers aim to achieve, and these elements may not be easily captured by short-term quantitative metrics. Engineers can recognize the qualitative impact of design decisions on the overall user perception and experience.

Prioritize Consistency

Design-savvy engineers can appreciate the importance of consistency in design across different parts of an application or system. Recognizing that users engage with various features, engineers can avoid designing in isolation, ensuring coherence in user interactions. Consistency contributes to a seamless and less confusing user experience. This is part of embracing and leveraging the power of a design language.

Value Design Details

Recognizing the significance of details is crucial for engineers working with designers. Implementing designs with precision, setting high-quality standards, and going the extra mile to perfect small details contribute to a positive collaboration. Valuing design details is a direct path to a designer’s heart and fosters a shared commitment to building exceptional and user-centric products. Engineers who demonstrate that they understand the importance and the value of these details will be in a powerful position to encourage designers to care about their own priorities and to build lasting relationships that can lead to future collaborations.

Get Collaborating!

It is no coincidence that Part 1 and Part 2 feel like mirrors of one another. Great collaborations involve respect and understanding between teams. Ideally, the collaboration between designers and engineers is a dynamic exchange, where innovative concepts are translated into tangible, functional solutions. Together they form a cohesive team that combines creativity with technical proficiency, delivering products that resonate with users and stand out in the competitive landscape. Here is a great article from Spotify outlining what a successful collaboration between engineering and design looks like for their teams.

Successful collaboration between design and engineering hinges on recognizing the pivotal role engineers play, building strong relationships, fostering an appreciation for design, understanding constraints, maintaining transparent communication, working closely during implementation, and delivering complete and detailed designs. These strategies form the foundation for a symbiotic and effective partnership in the realm of product development.

Check out the rest of our Insight series to learn more about the design industry. Sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn for design news, multi-media recommendations, and to learn more about product design and development!

Design History Series N. 018

Dava Newman and the MIT BioSuit™

In our Design History Series we highlight iconic women in design history and their innovative work. The historic contributions of women to design are many, and we aim to increase the awareness of these contributions in order to counteract a general trend of underrepresentation. In this issue we celebrate Dava Newman, an American aerospace engineer, director of the MIT Media Lab, and former NASA deputy director. Newman was instrumental in designing a spacesuit specifically tailored for female astronauts, addressing long-standing issues of ill-fitting suits for women.

Smart Start

Dava Newman, born in Montana in 1964, developed a deep fascination with space exploration and engineering from a young age. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Notre Dame in 1986, followed by a Master of Science degree in aerospace engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1989 and a Ph.D. in aerospace biomedical engineering in 1992. She’s been a professor of aeronautics and astronautics (the science and construction of space vehicles) at MIT since the 90s and became the director of the prestigious MIT Media Lab in 2021. Impressed yet?

The MIT BioSuit™

Throughout her career, Newman has been a trailblazer, developing innovative technologies that advance the field of space exploration. One of her most significant contributions is the development of the MIT BioSuit™, a spacesuit concept designed to revolutionize extravehicular activities (EVAs) for astronauts. Unlike traditional bulky spacesuits, the BioSuit™ acts like a second skin, enhancing mobility and reducing fatigue, offering astronauts greater flexibility during space missions.

In 2019, NASA’s cancellation of the first all-women spacewalk due to ill-fitting spacesuits highlighted a critical issue: the outdated design of spacesuits. NASA’s Extravehicular Mobility Units (EMUs) dated back to 1978, and their maintenance costs limited the availability of suits, particularly in smaller sizes. This poses significant challenges for smaller astronauts, especially women, affecting their mobility and comfort during space missions. Newman recognized the need for innovation in spacesuit technology to address these limitations and was already leading a research team that was tackling them head-on.

The development of the BioSuit™ represents a collaborative effort involving engineers, designers, textile specialists, and students from various disciplines. By leveraging expertise from diverse fields and incorporating cutting-edge materials and design principles, Newman’s team aims to revolutionize spacesuit technology. The BioSuit™ prototype is a lightweight, stretchy, 3D knit garment that is customized to each astronaut. These “second-skin” spacesuits incorporate small, spring-like coils made from a shape-memory alloy (SMA) that contract in response to heat, essentially shrink-wrapping the garment around the astronaut’s body. Controlling contraction and expansion with heat was a key innovation to solving the problem of how to get in and out of a skintight suit.

The key breakthrough in the design lies in the application of mechanical counterpressure, which directly applies pressure to the skin, eliminating the need for the traditional gas-pressurized suits. Made from elastic and active fabrics and designed to provide the pressure necessary to inhabit space (equivalent to one-third of sea level atmospheric pressure), the suit achieves the same pressurization as traditional spacesuits while enhancing mobility and reducing the overall weight. This approach supports astronauts in the vacuum of space while providing them with unprecedented freedom of movement during planetary exploration.

Newman’s vision for the future of spacesuits aligns with NASA’s goal of maximizing efficiency and mobility for astronauts on long-duration space missions. The suit has been improving steadily since the early 2000s, incorporating more and increasingly sophisticated technology (an accelerometer, gyroscope, and on-board machine learning algorithms, among others), and has been featured in a wide range of international exhibitions, including the Museum of Modern Art. The latest iteration of the suit was presented at the 2022 Mars conference. Newman’s work represents a significant advancement in spacesuit technology with potential applications for future Mars exploration missions, a particular interest of hers. With continued research and development, these “second-skin” spacesuits could revolutionize space exploration, enabling astronauts to explore distant planets with greater ease and agility. Newman’s life and work exemplify the transformative power of engineering in advancing space exploration and human understanding of the universe.

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Decoding Color Forecasting: The Art and Science of Predicting Color Trends

We use color forecasts for nearly every project at Interwoven because we know that product designers ignore them at their own peril. Color is a powerful aspect of product design, and we’ve all had the experience of making a purchase (or deciding not to make a purchase) based on color. While easy to dismiss for those who don’t know the research and analytics behind these forecasts, color trends are big, big business, and they are important commercial tools precisely because they successfully anticipate the desires, especially the future desires, of consumers. Research conducted by yarn and textile manufacturers, fiber producers, retail groups, and trade fairs consistently demonstrates that the first response from customers, whether textile buyers or retail shoppers, is to color. This Insight article will dig into what color forecasting is, what goes into generating a color forecast, the value color forecasts have to offer, and how we can use them in the design process.

What is a Color Forecast?

Color is a potent language of expression and emotion, and the best designers learn to speak this language to elevate their work. Color forecasting is a multifaceted process that blends artistry and analytics to anticipate the hues that will shape the future of fashion and design. Anchored in strategic research and cultural insight, color forecasting is indispensable for designers and retailers seeking to stay ahead of the curve in an increasingly dynamic commercial landscape.

Color forecasting involves predicting which colors will be popular in the future, enabling proactive decision-making in creating collections that resonate with consumer preferences. The process involves delving into current trends, cultural influences, and the psychology of color, all while considering the seasonal and environmental dynamics that shape color preferences. A forecast typically reflects a specific area of the market, and has a time horizon that aligns with that market. For example, a women’s athletic wear color forecast might look a year ahead while a forecast for sport utility vehicles might look 2-3 years ahead to accommodate a longer production schedule. Prominent color forecasting services include Worth Global Style Network [WGSN], the International Color Institute [ICA], and the Pantone Color Institute. Access to the forecasts requires a membership and fees, reflecting the value of such services.

designer points to color on swatch card — image via iStock

More Than a Sales Pitch

Skeptics of color forecasting argue that it primarily serves as a mechanism to reignite consumer interest in fashion and products on a seasonal basis, ultimately increasing sales. While color forecasting definitely holds significance in retail and manufacturing, the rationale behind the selection of specific colors often transcends commercial motivations.

Long before the formalization of color forecasting as a discipline, individuals selected and created colors for various applications, ranging from clothing to décor. Early color trends emerged as a result of innovative dyeing techniques and societal preferences rather than strategic marketing. For instance, in the post-War era, Americans gravitated towards cheerful pastel tones as a departure from the somber hues prevalent during wartime. These soft colors symbolized a renewed sense of optimism and vitality, reflecting broader societal sentiments of the time.

Developments in Technicolor in the 1930s revolutionized color trends, popularizing vibrant and vivid hues in cinema and beyond. This technological innovation allowed luminous costumes worn by iconic figures like Marilyn Monroe and Grace Kelly to captivate audiences in full color for the first time, sparking a cultural fascination with bold and dynamic palettes.

Currently, color trends increasingly serve as reflections of broader societal, cultural, and even political movements. During the pandemic, consumers exhibited a preference for earthy and calming colors over the previously favored ultra-bright and neon hues, reflecting a collective desire for solace and grounding in uncertain times.

As the influence of color on consumer behavior continues to evolve, the color forecasting industry integrates insights from history, psychology, and societal dynamics to anticipate future trends. Color forecasters offer retailers strategic guidance on selecting colors that resonate with consumers’ emotional and cultural sensibilities.

Navigating the Color Forecasting Process

As with so many skills in the realm of design, color forecasting is as much a technical skill as it is an art. The journey begins with thorough research into the current color landscape, identifying patterns and trends that serve as the foundation for future predictions. The process unfolds in a systematic manner, guided by research, analysis, and intuition:

Research: The process begins with an exploration of current color trends across fashion, art, and design landscapes. By dissecting the prevailing hues and identifying emerging patterns, forecasters lay the groundwork for informed predictions.
Analysis: Armed with a wealth of data, forecasters analyze current trends, seeking patterns and shifts in color preferences. By discerning the nuances of consumer behavior and cultural influences, forecasters gain insights into the evolving color landscape.
Forecast: Drawing upon their research and analysis, forecasters venture into the realm of prediction, envisioning the colors that will dominate future seasons. By considering seasonal dynamics, historical trends, and emerging influences, forecasters craft palettes that reflect what’s to come.
Test and Adjust: The predictions undergo scrutiny as forecasters test them against real-world applications, from fashion shows to editorial spreads. Any necessary adjustments are made based on feedback and emerging trends, ensuring the accuracy and relevance of the forecasts.

The Value of Color Forecasting

The scope of color forecasting extends beyond clothing to encompass accessories, footwear, jewelry, cosmetics, and beyond. Each category presents unique trends and color palettes, requiring tailored forecasts to meet consumer demands. By accurately predicting future color trends, designers and retailers can create collections that resonate across diverse product categories, driving consumer engagement and market success. Here are a few reasons designers and retailers find color forecasts so valuable.

Staying Ahead of Trends: By anticipating future color trends, designers and retailers can stay ahead of the curve, creating collections that resonate with consumers’ evolving preferences.
Enhancing Brand Identity: Strategic alignment with forecasted colors strengthens brand identity and fosters consumer engagement, distinguishing brands in a competitive market landscape.
Optimizing Production Processes: Accurate forecasting streamlines production processes, minimizing waste and optimizing resource allocation, enhancing operational efficiency and sustainability.
Driving Economic Growth: As a driver of consumer demand and market trends, color forecasting fuels innovation and economic growth, shaping the trajectory of the fashion industry.

Using a Color Forecast

Color forecasting involves selecting ranges of colors predicted for a particular product or market at a specific time in the future. Many color forecasts are tailored to specific product ranges (men’s knitwear, sport utility vehicles), but most will display three color groupings — lights, mediums, and darks. These groups typically include several colors known as classics (colors accepted over a long period, such as camel, navy, bottle green, and black). As consumers don’t constantly replace everything, color ranges for a specific season must consider previous season’s colors as well as new ‘fashion’ colors. Any color palette typically includes some of the previous season’s fashion colors, the new season’s fashion colors, and some classics within its lights, mediums, and darks.

Designers take the same approach, reviewing the color forecasts that are relevant for their product category and that have a timeline that aligns with their desired product launch date. Often, a designer will review their product category as well as tangential or related product categories to get a broader sense of the trends across an industry. These color candidates are assessed for relevance and suitability to the project, and a selection of them become part of a shortlist for the final palette, typically with a selection of light, medium, and dark tones, just like the forecast itself. Building a color palette is like putting together a puzzle, finding just the right combination of tones for the project at hand. The shortlist is rearranged and tweaked in various combinations as many times as needed to reach a final palette, often with mockups and material selection influencing the decision.

A Colorful Horizon

Numerous factors influence a consumer’s color choices. With increasing consumer awareness regarding color use, it is crucial for companies to comprehend these factors and their impact on their specific market. Marketers must understand how color affects consumers and color forecasting to provide appropriate colors for their market. Even a slight difference in shade from what the consumer expects can be disastrous for the manufacturer. Color forecasting is an indispensable tool in the arsenal of designers and retailers, guiding them through the dynamic landscape of design. By deciphering the language of color, forecasters illuminate the path forward, enabling proactive decision-making and creative innovation.

Crafting Comfort: Exploring the Footwear Design Process

The footwear design industry stands out for its blend of creativity and technical precision. Unlike many other design fields, it requires a deep understanding of both aesthetic appeal and functional considerations. Footwear designers are up against unique challenges, needing to meet ergonomic and visual needs while creating a product with a notoriously hard (and, consequently, often short) life ahead. As consumers, we want shoes that look great, speak to our personal style, serve our needs, and feel comfortable. Ideally, we want shoes that do all of this regardless of the category or use case, and we’ve all encountered shoes that don’t quite hit the mark. In this Insight article we will share some key considerations of footwear design and outline the footwear design process from concept to creation.

Top view of shoemaker making shoe on the table in workshop. — A designer adds design details to a footwear prototype. Photo via iStock.

Key Considerations in Footwear Design

Footwear design encompasses various essential factors that merge both artistic and technical elements. Like clothing design, it involves shaping, texturing, coloring, and balancing proportions. However, it also delves into intricate engineering aspects. Here’s a breakdown of the key components of good footwear design:

Functionality and Comfort: Achieving the right balance between function and comfort is paramount. This involves tailoring the design to suit different occasions—be it formal, casual, or athletic wear—while ensuring ergonomic support and wearability.
Fit and Anatomy: Central to footwear design is considering diverse foot sizes, shapes, arch support needs, and biomechanics. Utilizing tools like 3D molds helps designers to craft designs that accommodate varied anatomical features and movement patterns.
Material Selection: Choosing suitable materials for different parts of the shoe is crucial for both aesthetics and durability. This includes decisions regarding the lining, insole, outsole, padding, and upper portions, with options ranging from leather and fabric to mesh and suede. The material selection also plays a large part in the sustainability of a footwear design.
Construction Techniques: Determining the appropriate construction methods—such as stitching, bonding, and molding—is vital for ensuring structural integrity and longevity based on the design’s requirements. As the construction techniques available are constantly evolving as new technologies are developed, this is an exciting area for innovation in footwear design.
Aesthetic Appeal and Style: Crafting visually appealing designs that resonate with fashion trends and brand identity is a core aspect of footwear design. This involves conceptualizing and refining sketches, prototypes, and design elements such as color, texture, shape, and detailing.
Ethical and Sustainable Practices: With increasing emphasis on environmental consciousness, integrating ethical and sustainable practices into footwear design is critical. This includes using eco-friendly and recycled materials, adhering to ethical labor and manufacturing standards, and exploring cruelty-free options like vegan materials.

The Footwear Design Process

Designing footwear is a multifaceted process that merges creativity with technical expertise. A team of specialists come together to bring the concept to life. Drawing from the insights of seasoned designers, let’s explore the journey of a shoe design from concept to creation.

A designer marks a last. Photo via iStock.

Step 1. Inspiration and Research: Before diving into the design process, it’s crucial to draw inspiration from various sources and conduct thorough research. Whether it’s personal experiences, emerging materials, or market trends, this stage sets the foundation for unique and innovative designs. We like to look for inspiration on Pinterest, Instagram, and Directive Collective. As shoes are tightly aligned with fashion, we also review WGSN for trends and forecasting in fashion, determining the desired launch date for the shoe and confirming the most promising trend directions for our project. It is also common to review trends in car design to inform footwear.

Step 2. Conceptualization and Definition: Once inspired, designers define the concept that will guide the entire design process. This concept serves as a reference point for every aspect of the footwear collection, ensuring a cohesive aesthetic and mood. This typically involves narrowing down the major category of footwear. On the spectrum of lifestyle to performance, where does it land? Is it for men, women, children, or is it unisex? Does it target a niche user, like being designed for a specific sport? All of these questions help to determine the purpose of the shoe and where it will be situated in the market.

Step 3. Style and Selection: With the concept in place, designers identify the style and characteristics of the footwear, considering factors such as form, design details, and production techniques. Selections are made regarding shoe shapes, materials, and design elements to align with the defined concept. This part of the process likely involves narrowing down the potential directions discovered in the trends and forecasting research. While there are a broad range of style and color trends active at any moment, choosing a specific palette and style direction helps to keep a design or collection cohesive. Often this step involves creating a mood board that will unite the design team in the vision for the design.

Step 4. Design Development: Building upon the chosen style, designers translate conceptual ideas into tangible designs. Sketches and technical drawings are created to visualize every detail of the shoe, ensuring consistency and coherence within the collection. We generate an abundance of ideas and edit them to identify the concepts that most closely align with the goals outlined in steps 2 and 3.

Step 5. Pattern Making and Cutting: Highly skilled artisans meticulously create patterns based on design drawings, taking into account factors like material properties and measurements. Patterns are then cut from selected materials, with attention to detail to optimize material usage and quality. A last – a mechanical form shaped like a human foot – is finalized. This is the template of the foot that will be used for the design going forward, and the quality of the last used will make or break the success of the shoe.

Step 6. Assembly and Prototyping: Pattern pieces are assembled by skilled craftsmen, stitching them together to form the full upper of the shoe. This assembled upper is combined with components like toe and heel stiffeners, insoles, and outsoles to create the prototype shoe.

Step 7. Prototype Assessment and Adjustment: The prototype undergoes thorough assessment by designers and artisans to evaluate its visual and technical aspects. Adjustments are made as necessary to ensure the prototype aligns with the original concept and meets quality standards. Variations might be created to finalize decisions around design details and test color combinations.

Step 8. Iterative Refinement: If adjustments are required (and they often are), the prototype is remade to incorporate agreed-upon changes. This iterative refinement process continues until the shoe meets expectations in terms of aesthetics, comfort, and functionality.

Step 9. Finalization and Production: Once the prototype is approved, the shoe is ready for mass production. Patterns are scaled for each required size, ensuring consistency across the range. With the technicalities ironed out and designs finalized, the shoes are ready to be brought to market.

Step 10. Brand Identity and Storytelling: Throughout the design process, a strong concept and cohesive vision contribute to the development of a brand identity. The relationship between designer and artisan, as well as the technical expertise applied, imbues the final product with stories and conversations that resonate with consumers. While the concept defining in steps 2 and 3 is powerful for a consistent internal understanding of the design, the storytelling step is about translating that vision for the consumer.

Footwear designers must navigate a complex process that involves concept development, material selection, prototyping, and production, all while keeping abreast of market trends and technological advancements. The industry’s focus on sustainability and ethical practices is increasingly becoming a defining feature, influencing everything from material choices to production methods. Overall, the footwear design industry is characterized by its innovative spirit, attention to detail, and the ability to merge artistry with practicality to create products that not only look good but also perform well. The footwear design process involves a blend of creativity, research, technical skill, and iterative refinement. From initial inspiration to final production, designers navigate a complex journey to bring their vision to life, creating shoes that not only look beautiful but also tell compelling stories to those who wear them.

Design History Series N. 016

Beth Levine and American Footwear

In our Design History Series we highlight iconic women in design history and their innovative work. The historic contributions of women to design are many, and we aim to increase the awareness of these contributions in order to counteract a general trend of underrepresentation. In this issue we celebrate Beth Levine, the most influential and innovative American shoe designer of the twentieth century.

Tiny Feet, Big Dreams

Beth Levine, dubbed “America’s First Lady of Shoe Design,” left an indelible mark on the world of footwear that continues to influence contemporary fashion. Born in Patchogue, New York, in 1914, Levine soon left Long Island for a shoe modeling career in New York City. She had incredibly tiny feet (US size 4, EU size 35) that were the sample size of the era, and developed a keen intuition for how shoes would fit. At the time, shoe designers were men, usually those descended from generations of cobblers. Levine realized that she understood just as much about what constituted a good shoe as these prominent designers, if not more, and was determined to design shoes herself.

Creating the Brand

In 1946, while applying to work at a shoe manufacturer, she met and married Herbert Levine, then a fashion executive. The two founded their shoe factory, Herbert Levine, Inc. in 1948 and Beth began making shoes under Herbert’s name. At the time, footwear had not yet been sold with a woman’s name on the product. The factory was known for its excellence, and talent was brought to New York from all over the world to ensure top quality. She was known for relishing the challenges of footwear, saying “Clothes designers have gravity on their side, but shoe designers work upside down. Ideas are easy to come by. Getting them realized is something else.”

The couple had a vision to create shoes that were not just functional but also captivating. Using strategic cutouts and careful material choices, Levine became known for shoes that made women’s feet appear smaller and were therefore perceived as more elegant. Levine is credited with repopularizing the mule silhouette with this approach. At the same time, she wanted her designs to be comfortable above all, and she wasn’t afraid to be playful and bold. Beth’s innovative designs and Herbert’s business sense propelled the brand to prominence, garnering attention from fashion icons like Barbra Streisand and America’s first ladies of the era; Lady Bird Johnson, Patricia Nixon, and Jacqueline Kennedy.

Making History (Again and Again)

One of Beth’s most significant contributions to footwear design was her role in reintroducing boots to women’s fashion in the 1960s. Through her creative vision, boots transformed from utilitarian items into stylish fashion statements. Her stretchy stocking styles and vinyl Go-Go boots captured the spirit of the era and became iconic symbols of liberation and empowerment, epitomized by Nancy Sinatra’s hit song “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’.” The song not only propelled the demand for fashion boots but also led to the establishment of “Beth’s Bootery”, a dedicated fashion boot department at Saks Fifth Avenue.

Beth’s designs were characterized by their whimsical charm and innovative use of materials. On a dare she designed “topless” or “upper-less” heels, shoes with no upper that would be affixed to the foot with adhesive pads. She called another style “Barefoot in the Grass” and lined the insole with AstroTurf. For the wife of a driver in the 1967 Indianapolis 5000, she designed a shoe that resembles (adorably) a race car, which became so popular that variations on the design were released for years afterward. Her creations pushed the boundaries of conventional footwear. She experimented with unconventional materials (hello, AstroTurf) like vinyl, acrylic, and laminate, creating shoes that were not only visually striking but also ahead of their time. She also developed the now universally standard practice of putting an illustration of the shoe on the outside of the shoebox.

An Enduring Legacy

Throughout her career, Beth Levine received numerous accolades for her groundbreaking designs, including the prestigious Coty Award in 1967. Her ability to marry creativity with functionality revolutionized the shoe industry and paved the way for future generations of designers. Despite the closure of the Herbert Levine brand in 1975, Beth’s legacy endures through her iconic designs, many of which are housed in international costume collections. To Levine, who passed away in 2006, the only mistake in design is to “play it safe”. Today, her innovative spirit continues to inspire designers and fashion enthusiasts alike, reminding us of the enduring impact of her contributions to the history of footwear design.

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