Bayern Munich/ Adidas shoe design 2019
In collaboration with Adidas and Bayern Munich, and our team of students from the USC’s Iovine and Young Academy, were tasked to create a custom shoe for football stars David Alaba and Sergey Gnabry. We did a deep dive on each player, their history, style, and personality. We presented each player with our concepts and got a face to face opportunity to brainstorm what each player would like in their custom design.
Sergey has a really diverse stye, going to Louis V to casual Long Ts. Based on our interview, he showed strong interests in architecture, interior design, he enjoys asymmetrical show design, and loves bold color.
We embraced his preferences by creating an asymmetrical shoe bleeding Bayern colors across the tops. The gradient diamonds were inspired by the design of the Allianz Arena, Bayern Stadium, grounded in Gnabry’s love for architecture. Lastly, after getting input to focus more on the team than Gnabry himself, we added a cropped Bayern Logo on interior of shoes.
Adidas copy:
Two teams, one goal: a design based on the AM4 in homage to FC Bayern Munich. This shoe was designed by David Alaba along with students from the USC Iovine and Young Academy. The pixel graphics are inspired by the evasion equipment of the record champion. In the voting, he has prevailed against the design of Team Gnabry and is now produced in the adidas Speed Factory. The high-tech processing without glue and the responsive boost cushioning guarantee the ultimate in comfort and maximum energy return. The SPEEDFACTORY Torsion Bar integrated into the outsole allows an optimized back-to-forefoot freedom of movement for a natural ride. Its knitted upper comes with digitally developed, reinforcing tapes for a snug fit, which in conjunction with the lacing strip also provide extra stability.
Shoe Features:
Tongue: Composite Logo FC Bayern / adidas
Heel: lettering mia san mia
Sole: integrated SPEEDFACTORY Torsion Bar
A limited edition shoe from the creators of tomorrow.
Regular cut
shoelace
Knitted textile upper
A shoe for real Bayern fans
reinforcing SPEEDFACTORY tapes for optimum grip
Flexible stretchweb outsole
Responsive boost midsole
The Future:
At SIGGRAPH 2019 I was truly inspired by the work of Lavender Tessmer, a PhD student in Design and Computation at MIT. Her work combines the disciplines of Art and Architecture, creating a new fabric manufacturing technique that contracts knit fabrics when exposed to heat. At SIGGRAPH she was showcasing a sweater that fits to the contours of the wearer. I would love to apply her techniques to a shoe. Since Adidas UltraBoosts are lightweight knit fabric with a few structural elements, her research could create an amazing customizable shoe. I’ll keep you posted on progress.