After several months of design & development we had our final boot designs prepared along with all inspiration and color stories behind them. A highly successful day where the Consumer Experience in and around all things Forum were considered, debated, and ultimately progressed. With the boot development team, reps, and team riders all present it was another productive step towards lacing them up next winter and being ready for First Chair.

” Working with the team from Soldier was inspiring and it resulted in one of the sickest boot collections I have ever been involved with. Can’t wait to ride them!”
Source: Mikey Fullington: Product Manager – Boots, Burton Snowboards

The new 2013 Forum Boots by Soldier Design will be rolling into Tradeshow Season later in the Fall, look for more posts and visuals here!

The Enlightened & Unleashed Warrior platforms were created by Soldier Design and leading the Warrior brand into future product campaigns on and off the field. Look for more information here as the product becomes available at retail.

Soldier works with the Jordan Brand to usher in Dwyane Wade’s first signature shoe, which is the lightest Jordan basketball shoe ever. The technology and design elevate Wade’s hoop heroics on court to deliver a compelling product offering that aligns with Dwyane’s post-season quest. This Fly Wade campaign continues the Agent D3 communication originally developed by W+K, which was launched as ‘Dominate Another Day’ in Fall 2010.

Soldier named the “Impossibly Lightweight” mantra that is driving the Fly Wade initiative and informing the new D3 Visual Center and all communication.  Soldier created the Fly Wade logo and visual system in quintessential Attract, Connect and Engage fashion. The D3 Visual Center developed by Soldier consisted of the illustration work seen in Flywade shoe and dunk images, typography, product photography, copy and naming.

We look forward to sharing more of the work with you at soldierdesign.com on the release date of 06.09.11.

Until then visit the Jordan Site for more details.

Pedroia Email Blast by the folks at New Balance

Today, New Balance sends out an expansive email blast introducing the much anticipated Dustin Pedroia collection.  Soldier worked with New Balance and Dustin to carve out the positioning strategy, DP logo, product branding, product capsule and packaging.  We are excited for the season and the product begins to drop. Below are a few of the designs from the collection.  Order up!

Visvim Showroom in Paris (Sorry no pics allowed inside)

My travel schedule has neither cease’d or desist’d heading into 2011.  Hence, my far and few posts in between.  The month of January has had me on the global jet set. Fashion outlooks started at Mens Market here on the East and traveled through Fashion Week in EU.  Then off to the Action/Outdoor trade show circuit in the Midwest ending with the SIA (Snowsports Industries of America) show this past weekend in Colorado.  Some venues were more lifting than others as you might expect.  That said, the well traveled operating perspective I received from emergent industry and brand leaders including time with many of our diverse clients is always enlightening.  It’s the type of content and attitude spectrum that inspires me most i.e. taking the good from each and not worrying about the limitations of any.  A statement, which I can happily say captures the zeitgeist of the emerging culture at Soldier too.

Admittedly, there were many things that inspired me on my journeys, but shoes off again to Hiroki Nakamura of Visvim.  My visit to see him and his gestalt team of product makers in Paris was definitely the highlight to my travels.  My ongoing involvement with Concepts, a footwear/apparel retailer in Cambridge, MA had me visiting Visvim, as I often do– to look at the Fall/Winter 2011 collection.  Concepts happens to be one of only three stores in the US that retail Visvim, which always makes it a special story to tell.  The sparse, warm and character rich Visvim showroom in Paris was populated with amazing content, artifacts, process, storytelling, invention and product making.  Everything was beyond considered and noteworthy because of it.  But, I was most impressed with Hiroki’s continued convictions, constraint, clarity, consistency and control (in that order), which he swimmingly uses in unison in all that he seems to do.

Those five words are really driving me this 2011.  What’s driving you?

WW Mark Lockup

Soldier has had a busy end-of-year with footwear design and development projects with many of our clients.  Design executions ranging from utility to athletic and action sports to fashion footwear initiatives.  In that, we are excited to share a recently released product concept we developed with Tretorn for the Wilderness Workshop in Boston, MA.  If you’ve been receiving regular feeds from us, then you may remember an announcement and post last July about the opening of the Wilderness Workshop, which is a retail concept developed by Soldier and The Tannery with a brand of product collaborations of its own.   The first of many collaborations has arrived and available at the Wilderness Workshop on 711 Boylston Street in Boston’s Back Bay.

We reinterpreted the Tretorn Arsta Boot into a series of Galoshes inspired pieces with some proper thinking around rubbers involvement in footwear over the last 50 years.  It was good to leverage Tretorn’s iconic brand position on the utilitarian vulcanized rubber tip on behalf of  Wilderness Workshops ethos.

Soldier worked with Tretorn to develop a host of unique footwear separates that skew towards the idea of haberdasher meets woodsman.  The end result is a product rugged enough for the great outdoors with super warm buffalo flannel foot bed, embossed rubber pine cone patterning on a several layers of the shoe and a canvas pull tab.  But also maintains a certain swagger for the city slicker.

Tretorn gave Solider a tremendous amount of design freedom based on one of their timeless classics. We were able to rethink sole construction, create new product lines and new color and branding stories throughout the product architecture.  Below are some pics and initial sketches within our framework of thinking.  Notice some of the chivalry/heraldry inspired cues from the WW mark incorporated into the side architecture of the boot and that same mark is heat transferred via 3M application on the rear on the Galosh.  So far the in store feedback and sales have been good with an overall appreciation for the rugged look and overall restraint of the product design, which makes this a very attractive  & wearable piece.  Now available in olive and black (brown shown below, available in the near future).

And thanks to the folks at Selectism and Tretorn’s Swedish Goodness blog for their recent writeup.

Rear View

Side View

Perspective

Soldier Sketch Framework

Soldier Hardlines for WW Tretorn

Description: Vintage 30′s/40′s WWII Converse Skoots Sneakers from World War II (1938-1948) provided Converse with a singular opportunity.  Many products destined for servicemen overseas now became a focus of Converse manufacturing. The product range included footwear, apparel, boots for pilots and army servicemen. These hi-top canvas sneakers are incredibly rare. Made from natural canvas uppers with orange & black accents. Shoes feature black & orange medallion Converse emblem on the ankle with old Converse script. Orange tab at the heel reads, SKOOTS. The high top sneakers have a black swastika design rubber soles. These look to be unworn with little to no wear on the soles. We have left these in original as found condition. These are certainly museum worthy collectibles of original Converse, or WWII memorabilia.  If interested, you should place a bid on ebay.