aesthetically & technically came from those that used to post in these
competition on Niketalk (or NT). The Designer's Roll Call, or DRC,
where someone would pose a challenge to design a shoe & people would
post their renderings . Before studying design, these were the only
examples available of how other people designed, rendered, & sketched
shoes. So those examples became the benchmark, one by one they were
dissected to try to understand how & why they drew or rendered
something a certain way & how successful it was in communicating their
idea(s). Some even created artificial parametets & elaborate stories
around their concepts, taking it beyond just a superficial image. It
provided the initial seed in the dense netheregions of my teenaged
mind to go beyond just liking a ballplayer who liked sneakers, to
creating my own vision of what a sneaker could be; though it was a
while later where I actually thought I might want to (and even longer
before I thought I would be able to) do this for a living.
By the time I had the courage to actually post something of mine, the
DRC's didn't have the same level of interest/participation but those
that did were just as passionate. (and it definitely got me used to
people telling me that my designs sucked!). What was also cool about
doing the DRC's was the kinship that it created among those that were
involved, we all were trying to become designers & encouraged & pushed
each other to be better even though we were all strangers to one
another. Most of whom I still talk to every once in a while even
now. As time went on the DRC's faded into bolivian(sic-niketalk
humor) as people were not as interested, didn't have the time or
migrated over to the kicksguide artist series...
Lo' & behold I'm perusing NT, when I see the DRC is back! Hopefully
it will continue to be to those now what it was for me:
http://niketalk.yuku.com/topic/87308
Sent from my iPhone
