Design Brief BucketFeet is an American online retailer, specializing in
artist-designed footwear. They are best known for their colorful graphics and dynamic style. During spring of 2011 the company hosted their grand opening and since then has been collaborating with emerging artist around the world. Each shoe they produce has to be designed by a different artist. Therefore, annually they host competitions worldwide to find their Next Bucketfeet Artist.
The guideline for this competition was to develop a design that represents both their brand and myself as an artist.
Inspiration I was inspired by the summer time. During summer kids are getting out of school, water parks are opening up and the beach is the place to be on a hot sunny day. I wanted to incorporate t his energy of fun in the sun into my design.
I was also inspired by the layout of a laced up shoe. The reason I did not go with the silhouette of a slip-on shoe is because of the additional aesthetic shoe laces bring to the overall look of the shoe. With shoes laces
one can add more pops of color to the shoe or bring out a certain aspect of the shoe's graphics. In other
words shoe laces can sometimes make, break or save a good looking shoe.
In addition, I also felt that because Bucketfeet is known for their graphic designs on their shoes, a great way to keep this graphic image continuous was to make a pattern of mirrored images.
Ideation
I began my pattern by first picking the silhouette of an angelfish and then arranging them in different positions till I got this diamond affect. The reason I chose an angelfish is because I associate this particular fish with being tropical and exotic in comparison to a goldfish. However, I felt that the smaller set of angelfish did not give the design enough contrast and started to take away from the design.
Therefore, to give my pattern more contrast, in comparison to my first pattern, I decided to add a starfish and a copperband butterfly fish going in different directions to the design. With this addition, my design now has more contrast while maintaining my summer time concept.
Ideation: Phase 2
Before I developed my color scheme, I began by color blocking the patterns in black and white. Once I decided on how I wanted to arrange my color palette, I came up with two color schemes. One color scheme was inspired by a sunset, where the yellows and oranges transition into beautiful violets and blues.
However, I felt the gradations of this color scheme took away from the pattern. So I decided to go for a more straight forward approach with now gradations and just use yellows, oranges, blues and reds.
Final Model