Illuminate

Illuminate

2018

This was a three-week competition Fueling the Future of Footwear hosted by ASICS Tiger, Foot Locker, and Pensole Academy. I collaborated with footwear designers to produce a compelling story-telling idea to acquire a new audience. Our team won third place based on our product story, inspiration, product creation . Here you'll find the inspiration for the illuminate footwear pack, marketing strategy and promotional assets.

Inspiration

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Tōrō Nagashi | 灯籠流し

Tōrō Nagashi, which translates to "Floating Lantern", is a yearly Japanese festival to celebrate the souls of the dead. Celebrated in August, it is a large celebration for those who want to honor their ancestors, either close family members or those who passed in war.
Ancestors are represented by the flame in the lantern. To prevent the candle from being blown out by the wind, a barrier is created with a frame made of bamboo, wood, stone, or metal that is covered with paper or fabric.
The offerings of light that are lit on the tōrō are said to be the light of wisdom, which illuminates darkness and uncertainty. Tōrō Nagashi is conducted so that the ancestors may safely find their way back to the afterlife, riding on pure water, sent off with wishes that they may be reborn into beautiful souls. Historically people would mark their floats with wishes for the safe passage of loved ones to the afterlife but you can write any desire you may have.

Ideation

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Having established our inspiration, Tōrō Nagashi, I worked alongside a Color / Material Designer and Footwear Designer to come up with a color and material mood board. Inspired by the elements and imagery of Tōrō Nagashi (i.e paper lanterns and their translucent properties, water, fire), we were able to refresh the ASICS Tiger DS Trainer and Kayano, as well as add a unique new silhouette to the ASICS family. Above is the footwear we presented to the judging panel, featuring designs from my fellow teammates.

Color / Material Designer: Matthew Schuetz 

Footwear Designer: Anthony Arias


Marketing 

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As a Brand Designer, I was tasked with creating marketing around our collection. Including the Marketing Event, Distribution Plan, and Promotional Assets.
Displayed there is window merchandising at a store level. For the event, since Tōrō Nagashi is a floating lantern celebration, it seemed appropriate to celebrate the pack on a float in the Mariana. The distribution plan would span four cities, Tokyo, Los Angeles, New York, and London. Now, I will admit that this part of the plan is not as realistic, but we were encouraged to dream big. Since Tōrō Nagashi was set to be celebrated on 8.16.2019, we wanted to release 816 pairs worldwide. Coming up with a plan to release 144 pairs in each city and 360 on FootLocker.com, at a price point of $228. See how it doesn't sound like a wise financial plan? Regardless, there was a reason for the numbers. Promotional assets were set to be on the Foot Locker App, having the pack be launched on the app. The promotion on the foot locker app features a simple lantern on a black background. This brings a mysterious allure to the campaign which would intrigue the consumer. They would also be promoted on SneakerNews, a prominent online blog in the sneaker community. It would highlight the background story of the sneaker, the process, and how the sneaker would be distributed.

App Assets

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An idea I had to stand out is incorporating augmented reality into the sneaker experience. Though in its early stages I was quite inspired by how brands allowed consumers to try on sneakers through their app. This function would be part of the Foot Locker app and would allow the consumer to follow along with the Pensole process. This would happen by scanning the shoe and using their surrounding space to explore different parts of the process, from videos of designers working in Pensole Academy to meeting the designers.

Lessons Learned

This whole experience was a learning experience. From working on a tight schedule to produce a winning idea, to working with teammates and going through revisions of the storytelling. If I were to do this again, I would focus more on graphics. I think graphics are a powerful visual storytelling proponent that I can now accomplish but didn't have the right tools when I did this program. Focusing more on social media and how to capture the audience would've helped us secure first place. Though I was quite pleased with our third place to win since this was the first brand project I worked on.

Other Brand Work

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