in the skate industry shoes are a vital piece of equipment, but unfortunately they get destroyed pretty quickly. 2 of the main problems I focused on with this shoe was 

1. Broken Laces

2. wearing holes in the outer sides of the shoes upper

Laces undergo a lot of pressure and experience a lot of abrasion. Which means they break quite frequently. The outside upper right above the sole is a big place for abrasion with skateboarding. That is an area that rubs a lot on the board when doing tricks. With my design I wanted to come up with a solution for these 2 problems.

I was inspired by Vans, Adidas, Puma, and other more casual dress shoes.

I really wanted to do a high top design and I also wanted it to have hints to the classic Vans skate shoe. I came up with these couple of different concepts. It started out focusing more on the problem of reinforcing the outside upper of the shoe, but once I had better idea of how I wanted to solve that problem I could focus on the issue of broken laces.

After coming up with my basic design by sketching and brainstorming I put it into illustrator and worked out more of the details of the design from there. 

Photoshop Render + Advertisement 

This is the final photoshop render and advertisement I turned in for my project. I chose to do a suede burgundy upper and then I did a clear plastic layering on top of that in the areas of high abrasion. The plastic band across the top with the elastic at the bottom creates a laceless design that is easy to get on and off but still holds the foot securely in place. Classic, Quick, Protective.