Course I Activity: Build a Sneaker Portfolio

In this activity, I was instructed to pick nine different sneakers across three to five different brands in order to understand the changing resale marketplace of sneakers. I do not own all of these, however, they are some of my favorite sneakers across these brands.

Course I Activity: “What is your grail?”

In the “What’s Your Grail?” activity, the goals were to analyze the format and storytelling techniques used in sneaker advertisements, use social media to research a sneaker-related story, become aware of the reactions of consumers to sneaker-related ads, and finally create a well-organized graphic to share my favorite brand story.

Course II Activity: Create a Moodboard

In this activity, the goal was to fully understand what components are necessary to construct a moodboard. I decided to create a moodboard in honor of the Dominican Republic. Through this activity, I learned the skill of moodboarding that would become CRUCIAL in all my design and conceptual work.

Course II Activity: Design a Sneaker

In this design activity, I realized that color and material design is what I wanted my career to be going forward. The main goal of this activity was to learn to design original sneaker concepts using proper proportion and style lines. Although my sneaker was not a hundred percent original, I took a different route and designed a conceptual colorway in honor of Staple Pigeon and the late Kobe Bryant.

Initially, I kept putting this activity off because I found it very challenging. However, when I finally buckled down and got it done, I realized that conceptual color and material design is what I want to do for the rest of my life. To take a story, no matter how short or long it is, to take that moment (whether fictional or factual) and explain it through the medium of sneakers is something extremely gratifying.

Course IV Activity: Sneaker Boutique Floor Plan

In this activity, the objectives were to identify how top sneaker boutiques differentiate themselves from other retailers, choose a real location and create a floor plan of my “store”. In hindsight, the floor planning in this activity would become a crucial skill as a visual merchandising athlete at Nike NYC. Setting up new flow during fall and winter Nike collections has A LOT to do with floor planning, I didn't know then, but this activity definitely set me up for success.

Course V Activity: Brand Attributes

In the Brand Attributes activity, the objectives were to determine words that represent your 3 key “Brand Attributes”.

• Determine a word or phrase that defines your brand’s “Core Essence”.

• Write a short (30 seconds max) “elevator pitch” for your concept.

• Create an image that combines these elements and tells your story.

In the future, I plan to possibly own a boutique of my own. This course and this activity showed me the level of detail that needs to be had when creating a concept store.

Course V Activity: Build a Customer Persona

In the Build a Customer Persona activity, the objectives were to

• identify and determine the characteristics of your target customer.

• research different types of sneaker customers

• create a persona document exploring and highlighting a set of general customer characteristics that will help you to understand the wants, needs, and desires of your target customer.

• write a fictional narrative description of this person.

What did I learn throughout this program?

Throughout this program, I learned that Sneaker Essentials really did set me up for success in the footwear industry. Through the various challenges in the course activities, I ultimately learned that becoming a color and material designer is the career path that I’d like to go down in the sneaker industry. For the majority of my life, I have always loved sneakers but I thought it would never be possible to get a job in the industry, however, this program helped set me up for success in this long journey ahead!