#8) PEAK Basketball Design Concept

Designer: Karabo Anoh

Shoe name: PEAK SP

Design description: PEAK “SP”- Allowing the feet to gain natural strength and responsiveness.

The story…

The idea behind the Peak SP (Strictly Performance) started out as a concept on how to provide the players with the best shoe that will boost their game and help them achieve greater performance while playing.
Every great athlete trains hard to maintain their game and keep their bodies in shape. From runners running barefoot to aqua running for an alternative form of training or recovery, they all want to keep on improving everyday.

From that, I thought of the basketball player foot (feet) as the entire human body. I wanted the foot (feet) to gain more strength, agility and responsiveness while playing, and that, will benefit the players in the long run.
This was the goal I wanted the shoe to achieve and to deliver.
I wanted the shoe to be strictly performance. Removing unnecessary conventional parts of a shoe while keeping only those needed. This will make the foot (feet) feel more natural, free and perform better on its own.
I started sketching many concepts and looking at some architectural supportive structures for inspiration to design an upper that will achieve that with the least amounts of parts, and that’s when I came up with the INJEX FOAM PALM (I.F.P TECHNOLOGY) structure.
The INJEX FOAM PALM is design to allow the foot to work naturally with no restriction. It is flexible, supportive with segmented fingers hugging the exposed sock and maintaining the entire foot in place and grounded to prevent injuries.
The I.F.P upper by only providing necessary support on key areas helps the foot muscles to build strength while performing and becoming stronger on their own.

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Design feedback by Brett Golliff:

The idea of minimizing parts is great but I feel like your design became more about an execution of styling and less about what parts you need and don’t need. Lightweight footwear has been a huge push over the past five years and I am sure it will be for the next five years but the major element that this design is lacking is what parts are you giving up and why you are giving them up.

It is always good to find ways of minimizing parts to improve on design but don’t forget the necessary questions to get the end result you are looking to achieve.

Design feedback by Trung Tran:

I like the simplicity and fluidity of the design. I can picture the shoe flexing and moving and how those individual support fingers flex and warp with the foot. The outsole also ties in well with the upper. The design intent was to remove unnecessary parts of a shoe while keeping only those needed. Unfortunately, it’s unclear how he set off to achieve that exactly. It would have great to have one of the pages illustrate how different the construction of his shoe is or show what has been removed. Is the heel counter still there? A midfoot plate? Which layers in the upper were removed? How does having a PU decorative logo on the outsole fit into this bare-bone minimal approach?