This week I watched The Art of Design episode on Footwear Design as part of my Product Design class. It was centered around Tinker Hatfield, one of the founder shoe designers at Nike, who design many of the Air Jordan’s and who Phil Knight credits with saving Nike. There were a lot of interesting parts, and I recommend the 40 minute watch, but the highlight to me was the importance of storytelling in good design. Specifically with Michael Jordan, there was such a clear entanglement of good design and having a clear, meaningful story that people can get behind. In particular, the Air Jordan 20’s incorporated many icons which represented stories of different parts of Michael Jordan’s life and career. It was SO cool how Tinker was able to get Michael to tell his story and translate it into icons that became an iconic shoe design.
The episode is on Netflix as well as Youtube
Art / Design / Digital Culture: 264-401 F21 