My first work for Pashion Footwear was to design and prototype a 3D printed version of their convertible shoe. Based on their rough sketches, I quickly turned out this prototype that they were able to wear for investor pitches and actually demonstrate the function of their concept.
With such a robust prototype in hand, securing funding was no problem! I was delighted to continue working for Pashion to design a manufacturable product based on their foundational concept. An early version is shown below with a prototype 3D printed heel.
After tooling up and running a few successful production runs, Pashion secured funding to retool with an updated design, and I was hired to push the mechanical design even further — maximizing stiffness and security while reducing costs and leveling up the visual aesthetic of the product. In addition, Pashion wanted the design to allow tolerance variations so that all heels are compatible with all shoes. This required maintaining tolerances that were unheard of in the squishy world of footwear manufacturing.
I made countless 3D printed prototypes as we iterated and re-iterated the mechanical design. These allowed us to quickly test promising concepts and mechanisms.
Working with a distributed team of industrial designers, footwear experts, and manufacturers, we pulled it off!
With this new design Pashion was able to create a modular platform for their product, and now heels can be mixed-and-matched, enabling a customizable footwear platform that offers unrivaled comfort and endless style variations. Pashion Footwear is out there today making a product of which we are all very proud.