A friend of mine was absolutely right; the first blog post is hard. It’s difficult to introduce yourself to an audience you can’t see. You don’t know what to say because you don’t know their reaction. I’m going to take a page out of Brett’s book and just cut to the chase.

I am Tom Spence, currently a senior at the University of Cincinnati: College of Design Art Architecture and Planning (DAAP) studying Industrial Design. Additionally, I am currently an intern for footwear design at Under Armour in Baltimore, MD for the third time. I spend most of my days drawing and designing footwear whether for work or fun. This passion has provided me with many opportunities to not only grow as a designer but as an individual. Continue reading Training Camp With Tom Spence – Week 1: Rookie Debut…

The initial passion for design started in high school but in an unconventional way. I was good at problem solving and was initially intrigued by computers and computer science. This approach was too literal and lacked the creativity I craved. I always loved art, drawing and painting, building models, etc and soon found industrial design as a major that I really enjoyed learning about and would want to pursue after high school.

I was accepted at the University of Cincinnati in May of 2006, less than a month before graduation and two months before orientation, so much for early admissions. DAAP had a world-renowned co-op program pairing students with internships to expand learning outside of the classroom and into real world situations.

I first interned at New Balance in 2008 where I really started to fall in love with footwear design. This is also when I started becoming more of a sneaker head and had the financial means to start growing a collection. I was never a great athlete but was into sports eventually shifting my focus to footwear, but never had the money to start a collection. My collection consists of a variety of running and training shoes, New Balance lifestyle shoes, a few pairs of Jordan’s, Lebron VIIs, and Under Armour Micro G Fly samples. A few favorite pairs are my Prestos, Dunkman Lebron VIIs, and those Micro G Fly samples.

My time here on CounterKicks will be to provide an insight into the Under Armour internship experience. I want to cover everything from steps to getting the internship, everyday as “the intern,” to interviews with some of the designers in the office. I want to try to keep this as real time as I can with each step of my internship so stay tuned for weekly updates.

-T