Last Place Footwear

It's been a long 2 year hiatus for this blog, but a lot has happened in-between. After relocating from the Boston area to Portland, Oregon, a loose plan to open up a skateboard sneaker & equipment shop snowballed into an opportunity for me and some of my closest friends to purchase Commonwealth Skateboarding, Portland's only public indoor skatepark, and open up a skateshop and design studio in the storefront. 

After two years of endless, monotonous business work, interior remodeling and thousands of miles biked, the skate shop is largely finished and our Last Place design studio is back up and running.

All of the design and artwork created in the studio for Commonwealth will be posted here along with the thinking behind it and the various sketches created to get to the final product. It will also continue to be a primary outlet for sneaker design and just about everything else we make in the shop. 

Shop Interior Before & After:

We're gearing up for some big changes at Last Place Footwear. First and foremost will be an eventual transition away from Tumblr for our primary site. I struggled with this decision because I really appreciate the community aspect of Tumblr, but our site content has never been a perfect fit for the format. Irregardless, this will free up our Tumblr space to be a little more informal and social.

Speaking of which... We're changing the way we display our kicks! It's been quite obvious that the current site layout doesn't present our designs in the most effective manner, so we're launching a new site in Summer 2012. It will have new FEATURES! If our years of working for sports marketing companies have taught us anything, it's that stuff needs to have FEATURES.

Lastly, we just changed coasts. This month we packed up and moved our base of operations from Boston to the beautiful, rainy city of Portland, Oregon. Couldn't ask for a better home base for bicycle and skate inspiration. While it's nice to have a new bike map to explore, I miss hauling ass down Brattle Street on the approach to Charlie's Kitchen.

It recently occurred to me that I've been somewhat neglectful to my downhill biker brethren. Most of the miles I log are in the city, so I must apologize for my inherent bias towards urban cycling. This weeks design is an attempt to remedy that with a beefy, straightforward downhill riding sneaker for those out there who would rather dodge trees than MBTA buses. 

I started this design with a sectional sole, featuring a rubber cupsole forefoot for maximum durability and an inset compression molded EVA midsole in the back. The rubber outsole has directional teeth in the heel and toe area for traction and the flex area has deep multi-directional grooves molded into the sole.

The rear quarter of the upper features a high abrasion synthetic heel piece joined via closed seam with a textile collar and eyestay overlay. This would essentially make the rear quarter of the shoe one stable indestructible piece while preserving a soft comfortable collar. 

With this latest design, I felt like I wanted to create something with a bit more flavor. I started doodling some mid-cut skate shoes that played with stitching the main heel piece to the midsole before attaching it to the upper. After seeing it colored up in black, it struck me that it looked kind of like armor.

That sparked the idea to design the business end of the sneaker to be made from an aramid fabric like Nomex or Kevlar. I layered the eyestay and underlay pieces so that a combination of 3M Scotch Weld adhesive bonding and posted eyelets would make the forefoot indestructible. Even when the eyestay seams shredded away from skating, that mother should stay together.

Spring has finally arrived... Well OK, it's probably global warming. But, while I was out enjoying the early stages of our planet's demise, I noticed a marked rise in the number of Dutch style cruisers out and about on the city streets. While a cruiser isn't my first choice for bombing around the Charles River, I appreciate seeing others enjoying the casual pace of a Dutch bike for running errands or riding a few blocks to a watering hole.

When I came back to my sketchbook, I was inspired to whip up a light, comfortable ladies sneaker for casual spring riding. This design is essentially a hybrid of a flat and a canvas deck shoe.

After some collaboration with the lovely Mandy McClausky, I decided to split the collar at the achilles tendon and have an thin underlay of foam backed lycra to maximize comfort and prevent gnarly blisters from constant abrasion. This also allowed me to add a little pop of color to the shoe.

After spending some time in the performance bike and skate space, I felt the need to conjure up something a little more casual. It's nice to have one pair of kicks that can be worn in an office or out to upscale bars on a Friday without getting stopped at the door. 

The design is a very basic blucher/chukka construction with minimal pattern piecing. The black and brown colorways are intended to be slightly distressed full grain leather, while the grey version would be made from waxy suede. The key details are the decorative leather heel strap with a branded rivet on the lateral side and the leather pull on the rear collar. 

Well, that was a nice hiatus. This will be the first of many regularly updated designs in addition to some new supplemental content for your free viewing pleasure. 

This most recent design is a named after the bad-ass 12 mile bike path that runs from Cambirdge out to the stix. I started this design a while ago and couldn't figure out how to finish it. I wanted something that was technical looking without looking like something that came out of the Nike Innovative Kitchen. There is a tendency in the footwear industry to get bored with what is simple and beautiful. This usually leads to hideous, overbuilt toys for your feet.

I started with a clean slim suede forefoot for smooth pedal clip interaction. The bottom portion of the eyestay and mudguard wraps under the midsole, so long term wear on the stitching won't completely ruin the front end of this sneaker over time. This would have the added bonus of making this concept durable for skateboarding. The rear quarter underlay is created from ballistic nylon or canvas with a folded edge. My intention here was to supply stability while maintaining a soft and comfortable collar. 

After I wrapped up my first Stance vinyl toy, I wanted more. This time I wanted to put some real time into one and break away from the 2D surface with some Super Sculpey polymer clay. I decided to try my hand at recreating the Nike Jordan 4. I chose this sneaker because it was A) one of the best looking Jordan models ever made, and B) proportionally close to the last shape of the Stance kicks.

I started by roughing in the pattern and midsole with blue pencil lines. Once I nailed down the proportions, I began building out the three dimensional layers by outlining each pattern piece in a thin strip of Sculpey. Next, I rolled out thin sheets of the clay to cut the forms for the plastic lacing and heel components. To get the correct collar height and shape, I had to cut away the stock collar to build up the achilles notch and lengthen the tongue.

The real challenge was to create the appearance of material layering without building the surface out too much. It took several rounds of priming and sanding to blend the clay with the underlying vinyl form without a notable textural difference. The laces were another tricky one. It took a while to get the laces rolled out to the exact same thickness and width to make them look natural. 

A gift from the sneaker gods. Designers Delroy Dennisur & Spencer Wyatt have marshaled the unstoppable armies of the internet to fund their piece of footwear genius; a sneaker vinyl toy that allows you to make your own kick(s). Complete with shoebox and wrapped in tissue, this simple sneaker primitive has great proportions and shape with a sleek toe and clean sole. 

They were kind enough to hook me up with an early sample, so I geeked out on one for a few hours with some Prismacolor markers and colored pencil. I had so much fun working on it that I was kinda sad when it was finished. I'm gonna have to grab some acrylic paints and really put some love into a new one. 

After a couple months of travel, deadlines and some good old fashioned relaxing, it's time to get back to posting some fresh new sneaker concepts for the urban manchild. Lately I've been spending a lot of my free time moped tinkerin' and building a portable hammock stand for Burning Man ("GET A JOB, HIPPIE!"), but I've definitely been slacking on the footwear front.

Sometimes an idea is born from a moment of complete boredom. While sitting through a particularly painful meeting one day, I took a break from writing snarky notes to my coworker and banged out a quick sketch for a wall that I could build around my desk at work. I liked the concept right away, as it was kind of a play on how much of my life I spend at work. From an execution standpoint, it was a project that would present numerous logistical challenges and push my woodworking abilities beyond what I had ever previously attempted.  Once I committed in my head to go through with the project, I immediately started taking measurements of my work desk and cube space. I figured that I couldn't get away with building anything that annexed additional floor space, so I used the dimensions of my desk as the interior perimeter of the structure. Next step was to figure out how to build it so I could get it into (and out of) the office in a very short amount of time. I settled on a three piece design that included a main wall with a window, a long wall that hovered over the top surface of the desk and a small stabilizing leg that would be wedged in between the desk and the cube wall.  The exterior of the wall is made from a mix of MDF and pine molding with the center panels filled in with cedar shingle. One major logistical challenge was the scale of the molding. Molding used in full size homes is fairly thick and very expensive. When I went to draw up plans in Illustrator, it quickly became obvious that if I were to use stock molding for the entire project, the size of the wall would grow beyond what I was comfortable with. So as a result I had to plane down all of the wood used to about 75% of true home scale. The window is made from some scrap tempered glass shelves I had sitting on my back porch. The interior wall is made from 1/4" drywall. This being my first time installing wall board, I wasn't super impressed with my taping and mudding but I'm probably just being hard on myself. I knew I wanted to have a shelf on the long wall for shoes and toys, but wasn't sure the best way to execute it. In the end I settled on a floating shelf design made from pine and MDF sheets.

With the help of a couple friends, I brought the completed structure into the office and all of the pieces slid together as designed. After months of labor and triple checking all of my measurements, it was satisfying to overcome all of the logistical issues and have the project completed. Time for a beer.

Although I spend most of my time on my bike, the other day I found myself tinkering with my moped while waiting in vain for spring to show up. It got me thinking about a sneaker built for some serious moped riding. I spoke with a friend of mine who rides with the Latebirds, a rad gang of moped tinkerers in Los Angeles, about rendering up a shoe concept for the group. They log some serious miles tearing ass across Silverlake or remote stretches of desert road in California, so Dan was more than willing to give me a few suggestions.

After spending some time in my sketchbook, I ended up with two concepts; One clean leather high top built for rally riding and a low top chukka designed for joyriding. My focus when I started exploring was to avoid sacrificing aesthetics for function. Nobody wants to be riding around on a 30 year old moped in armored Sidi motorcycle boots, so I had to find something that hit the sweet spot between boot and sneaker. 

For the Rally concept, I started with a boot style quarter panel & eyestay contruction. The collar and ankle were inspired by performance basketball shoes, with a partial heel bootie inside for a snug fit and increased ankle stability. I also included a thin plastic heel clip that terminates right before the flex area of the forefoot. This would provide supplemental stability and help prevent a fracture if you need to make a sudden foot assisted stop. The primary material is intended to be a distressed full grain leather with a heel underlay of enamel leather for contrast.

The chukka was designed to be a stylish companion to the Rally version without the functional overkill. Since this was intended for more casual riding I wanted something simple that would make for a great everyday sneaker. I started with a basic chukka construction with a textile binding that wraps around the entire edge of the quarter panel and heel. I included metal eyelets so the quarter overlay could be made of canvas as well as leather. This design maintains the same enamel leather heel underlay for continuity. The clean slim toe is blocked in suede or nubuck to hold up the rigors of other urban transport as well as pair with just about any pant or short combo.

I'm pretty satisfied with each of these concepts and how they sit together. Both share a number of small embellishments such as the color popped eyelets, plastic heel clip woven tongue labels featuring the Latebirds crest and similar executions of the quarter stripe stitching.

I hesitate to post a lot of subjective content on this blog, as the focus of this website is new urban footwear concepts, but I was so repulsed by this bike design that I thought it was worth sharing. 

This collaboration bike, brought to you by Pharrell Williams and Domeau & Peres, is a steel frame fixed gear bike with all of the primary features wrapped in buffalo leather. This useless bike costs about $27,000. It couldn't be more obvious that this was not designed by people who actually log miles on a bicycle.

Price tag aside, who is this designed for? What I hate about this bike is that it's a weak concept. Wrapping some bullshit in expensive leather does not make it good or valuable. It's not designed for city riding because you'd be an idiot to lock up that bike anywhere but the suburbs. It's not designed to be ridden when there's any moisture in the air because that leather will get completely destroyed around the chain. It's not even taken far enough to be in the MoMA. This bike just sucks.

I respect that some people want the most baller variant of any item they buy. But this is like the worst bike ever for almost thirty thousand dollars. Trek has some insanely hot, functional and expensive urban bikes if you want some hot accessories like leather grips and nylon belt action.

For my latest design I wanted to balance the simplicity of my previous post with something a little more dynamic. After throwing down some sketches in my Moleskine, I hit upon a thumbnail that had potential. The end result was solid mid-cut skate sneaker that I'm pretty happy with. 

The primary visual element is a color popped eyestay overlay attached to the front quarter panel with a closed seam for grip tape abrasion. The top of the eyestay continues into the main ankle overlay for stability. The heel overlay is offset from the collar lining to keep the achilles notch nice and soft. Because I wanted to add some flavor to this design, I made the tongue pretty long and added a closed seam so it would kick forward nicely.  Lastly, I the sole is a combination of a molded rubber cupsole with a compression molded EVA foam midsole partially exposed at the shank. The heel of the cup has a slightly concave profile that smooths out as it wraps around to the sidewall.

The name is a tip of the hat to the gritty and abysmal skate park in Hyde Park, MA. It's a park that perfectly reflects the realities of skateboarding in Massachusetts. Concrete that's chipped and cracked. Warped and destroyed sidewalks from snow maintenance. Black ice on the mini ramp. Skaters and BMX kids who are there year round in any weather.

Not sure if anyone has written about this, but a couple years ago some local skaters took the time to build and pour a bunch of concrete ramps that were hilariously omitted from the original plans. There were literally no good approach ramps in the park aside from one shallow double sided funbox that was more suited for BMX. The ramps that these kids poured weren't exactly an homage to German engineering, but they added some key features that were totally missing. Sure enough, someone from the city eventually started creepin', and shortly thereafter they were all demolished.

For the first post of the new year I decided to go back to basics. Using elements from a previous thumbnail sketch, I whipped up a clean, low-cut versatile bike sneaker for bombing around the city. I started with a simple blucher construction with a low cut sidewall. I then incorporated a classic court style toe on the cupsole to fit snug with slide in pedal clips. 

The upper features a continued evolution of my initial branding elements. The lateral stripe has a slightly faster pitch than the absolute perpendicular stripe of previous designs. The logo execution is a small woven label flag stitched under the lateral eyestay. I think the asymmetrical design of this concept adds some dynamism without pushing it far outside of the aesthetic I've developed so far.