Ever thought “I could design cooler shoes than this!” Well now you can...

Posted By: Max Zuckerman | Feb 4th, 2008 @ 12:25 PM | 3,152 Views | 2 Comments

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Pink, green, and royal blue probably is not a combination you will find on store shelves from your favorite shoe companies. But if you so desire to mash those three colors (or more) in a shoe design that you can bet your lunch money will be uniquely yours... then read on.

Nike has taken custom shoe designs to the extreme by allowing you to color-customize a select number of their new athletic and fashion shoe lines. My personal favorite (seen above) is their Nike Free technology shoe which I have to admit is so light and free moving that I might actually believe their marketing that it’s making me a better athlete. I’ll call that design “Americana.”

Puma has gone in a slightly different but very interesting direction. They give you only two options of shoe types to customize. However, not only can you choose colors but you can really go nuts by adding wood-grain patterns, different material leathers, or shiny silver accents. I also really appreciated the experience they present as a “Mongolian Barbeque” complete with animation and a wise man that keeps telling me patience is a virtue... how he knows I’m impatient, I am not sure. I guess they really know their demographic!

I also found Vans has a customization section but it was lacking in comparison to Nike and Puma’s vast options so I skipped on that process. I also tried to see if Adidas was in the game but couldn’t find anything, has anyone seen something by Adidas or any other companies?? The last thing I will mention is that while this is fun, it does come with a hefty price ranging from $100 and up depending on the brand and style you choose. So in the end you have to ask yourself if a 20% premium is worth it to be the only kid on the block with lime green, black, and white Nikes (oooh, I call dibbs!).

Anyone care to take a guess at what the technology back end is like for a system like this? Is it all automated and if not, how would you design such a system?

Tags: customize shoes, nike, puma

Rating:

madd0

Wow, I just tested the sites and well, all I can say is "wow!" Especially the Puma site!

Now all I have to do is win the lottery to make myself a pair, when you consider that a basic pair costs at least 100€ plus shipping and that the last time I bought shoes I bought two pairs for less than half of that (and that wasn't so long ago either, just last week for the BillG thing...) I guess I'm just not part of the targeted audience.

And when will we see one of these in Silverlight? Don't mean to troll or anything, but Flash keeps using 100% and crashing my browsers...

I bet it won't be long, either, before we can stitch our own logos onto customized shoes. Now, my full-color logo stitched on my shoe tongue, that I'd probably pay 100€ to have...

Have a nice day.

PS. If you're into fashion, have you checked out Microsoft's The Devil Wears Prada/Unified Communications videos? Really funny... I've got some on my blog in case you want to check them out.

signal

If you like NikeID and the puma site, take a look at what thirteen23 is doing in the integrated retail space:
http://www.thirteen23.com/experiences/retail/shoe/.

Multi-touch screen interface with shoe configurator.