Shoe Designs for Creatives See Upgrades

If you look at the shoes of artists, designers, and creative, you’ll find a great many pairs of Converse being worn. The most common among the Converse All Star line is the Chuck Taylor. The Converse All Star shoes were originally designed as one of the first sneakers back in 1920s, and the Chuck Taylors were one of the first basketball specific shoes. While other high-performance basketball shoes came along in the 1980’s, the style of Converse shoes had remained unchanged for decades, until this week.

The shoe design and style has been maintained, and this year they’ll sell 100 million sneakers using decades-old design. This is because Converse has become a lifestyle brand rather than one focused on performance. From popular musicians to the First Lady, the Converse style is everywhere. In addition to the standard shoe designs, they’ve created a following with their style focused versions of their shoes, many created in limited editions. The style-focused shoe versions retain the canvas on rubber look, but many versions customize the canvas just as an artist would on their wall. High-style designers such as Missoni and pop-culture comic strips from DC Comics have adorned some of the limited edition shoe designs.

Converse has maintained the headquarters for their shoe designs in Boston where they recently unveiled an updated version of their iconic shoe, the Chuck Taylor. The new version, simply called the Chuck Taylor II, has a nearly identical external appearance to the original shoe design. Most people won’t be able to tell the new from the old looking only at the outside. On the inside is where the shoe design has been altered, providing many things that are standard in most modern shoes: padded tongue, better support and padding on the sole, and modern material on the interior walls. While the exterior remains canvas, the newer versions are of an upgraded variety. While the newer versions are said to be much more comfortable, the original shoe designs will continue to be sold as well.

For those interested in learning more about ways to create their own unique footwear, American Graphics Institute offers Photoshop and Illustrator shoe design classes along with Adobe Illustrator fashion courses.