Abstract

Tinker Hatfield: Nike Footwear Designer

Abstract shows a series of designers in their own field how they change the way we look at world today. Its actually so real that every human activities we have its mechanic part , its functional organization but at same time all of these also present an unique visual characters too.

From Abstract I want to write about Tinker Hatfield, Nike’s game changing shoe designer. He was originally an very successful athlete in his years and even won scholarship in University of Oregon. May be “Unfortunately “ he had his ankle accident and couldn’t pursue his career, I said maybe unfortunately because I don’t want to say fortunately due to this accident we can see the whole shoe designs in Nike by him and he change the way we look at a shoe and how far it can go.

I think it comes down to him to change his career to something which is fundamental. Such as a relationship between an shoe and an athletes. As he was saying “a barefoot can do a lot and my job is to make them even better.

He met this man called Bill Bowerman one of the founders of NIKE and he was designing shoe for athletes and used to be his couch when Tinker was in college.

I think they both are really had this understanding of the athletes and their shoe not only to provide a better and comfortable experience for the athletes but how an good shoe can help the athletes to win the game.

Tinker couldn’t play in the field anymore but he had all the knowledge and experience as an athletes above all he faced the nightmare of an athletes who lost his career due to this accident. So to design something to prevent such accident and overall comfort I think he is loaded I would say and he is an good artist too so these elements all together made what he is rite now .

“you have to prepare you mental for your goal and ready to go for an extra mile to achieve it “ says Tinker. He has not only determination but also has a great understanding of designing and story telling. To him art is an self expression but he said as a designer the end goal is not to become over self expressive rather the end goal is to solve a problem for someone else and hopefully it looks great and cool to someone else. I can not agree more to his way of thinking about designing because design is not just making something nice looking but it should have a purpose and a goal, this is the real differences between and a fine art painting and a poster.

I was also intrigued when he said In a lot of ways design is predicting future! I think this is absolutely true to many sense, web designers has to come up with mockups of their ideas where storyboard artist will come up with thumbnail sketch to show their intended stories. It is also creating your imagination with some sort of legitimate logics or reasons behind it.

Looking at his work “Back to the future “ movie series he had came up with this idea of how the shoes will be different in future. That’s how NIKE’s E.A.R.L. series was developed when they produce self-lacing shoes.

Finally the world is always changing and as a designer I think we have to be open to all the ideas and be imaginative at the same time realistic. To me after watching this show tells me that any human activities are important enough to be notice because all of them has a part of our professions which makes them complete.

“ The basic design is always functional but great ones always say something”

Tinker Hatfield