Think Look Do Spring 2016

Carson Stern

Carson Stern

Carson Stern

Carson Stern

Carson Stern

Carson Stern

Carson Stern

Ugh. This is where it all climaxed. The Yeezy 950 Duck Boot. This shoe is funking ugly. its a terrible boot, looks unbelievably uncomfortable, unwearable etc. the monochromatic colors do not work well with this boot. look at the back of the boot, its so not dynamic, not anatomically, and unappealing. damnit the back of this shoe is ugly. why is the sole so damn thick. why are the lines so harsh. the ankle is so thick, and the toe box is so high. its not a duck boot, its just stupid. what person is this appealing to? the arctic explorer that likes to wear man skirts? jesus christ this shoe is so dumb. enter kanyes name. THE ASKING PRICE IS $600!!!!! WHY IS THIS SHOE NOT SITTING IN A DUMPSTER BEHIND AN OUTLET STORE damnit. I hate this more than anything ever

Here’s where I trail off a bit to talk nike. Now from the get go the number 1 response to the Yeezy Boost 350 was that it looked like a Roshe. People made all sorts of jokes and images and customs to show the parallels between the two, and theres no denying they're extremely similar. The custom on the bottom left looks like an exact replica, with just a swoosh thrown on the side. The nike Roshe is a stupidly successful sportswear shoe released in 2012. The shoe was a lightweight sportswear shoe with a thick soft sole and a minimal thin upper. The biggest draw to all of this? $75 retail price tag. This made nike comfort available to the masses, and people went wild. The shoe was and still is wildly popular, and has come in hundreds of color ways, even one inspired by the original yeezy colorway (pictured above). They were really wearable and all that, basically they were everything the yeezy was at a lower quality and with a different name. I think if you add the quality materials and everything, this shoe could definitely be in the $160 price range, hence the yeezy. put it out in limited enough quantities, in the right colors, I could even seen it reselling for 200-250 and it would be reasonable. But Kanye’s name on it and everything else and the price goes crazy. these weren’t even that limited. Nike’s roshe’s don't sell because they over saturated the market place, intentionally. The shoe makes nike a lot of money, but theres nothing about either shoe worth 1200.

The sole is close to the same as the high, but for some reason works much better on this silhouette than it does on the high. I think this shoe lends it self to a much more athleasure aesthetic where the other one is a luxury sneaker/sneaker boot, and I think this works well with the athletic feel of the boost sole. the uppers are made of Adidas’s Prime-knit, a knock off of Nike’s flyknit, an innovation Kanye made popular while with nike. Adidas doesnt do prime knit nearly as well as nike does flyknit, they basically create knitted materials and then cut and sow. Nike knits the shoe to the exact specifications, and glues the knitted upper to the sole. It mainly utilizes recycled material and its waste is about 10 inches worth of string, rather than the old figure of %30 of materials go unused/thrown away. Anyway, adidas prime knit is very elastic, and lends itself well to the slip on no tongue aesthetic of the 350 boost. I don't understand the large stitches through the center of the font of the shoe, but something about it matches well with the thickness of the rope laces and the material used for the heal tab. I think the material around the color looks cheap and cheesy, but also somewhat goes with those other elements. I’d be interested in seeing a one piece upper without the stitches and material around the collar, ironically I think the shoe would look worse, but I could be wrong. Take off the laces and the heel tab too. it would be interesting. The pattern on the upper is cool and i appreciate that its consistent from model to model. I think it works best with the tonal colors, rather than the black on grey. I think the grey/black (turtle dove) color way is hands down the worst, as large hits of black (not shown in the above picture) look out of place when combined with small hits of read and two colors on the upper that don't flow too seamlessly together. The black pair is amazing, and the dark grey on black with extremely small red hits works incredibly well. My favorite is the “moon rock” color way. The greenish grey landed during a time where rogue green was the color of the moment and fit so perfectly on the shoe. the shades of grey green and slightly darker grey/green looked premium atop a sole that matched perfectly. additionally, this color way was really original, as I haven't seen colors like that on any model of any other company’s shoes. They oxford tan was a little too yellow/brownish for me, and reminded me of the “wheat” collection that nike puts together every fall. I think the color works well with the shoe and theres nothing on it that doesn’t flow, but it doesn’t hold up against the black and moon rock colors. More than anything else the shoe is super wearable and looks really comfortable. They pretty much all fetch 1200, which is again a ridiculous number, especially seeing of all the Yeezy’s this one was released in the highest quantity.

Kanye went to adidas for more creative freedom. It took quite some time for the shoe to end up being announced, but when it did people went insane. Insane over an adidas ugg boot with a strap and a pro-ked’s sole. I understand the shoe, its supposed to be a luxury sneaker, all suede high top, zipper on the side, and then to top it off you place to shoe on a sole that feature’s adidas’s latest technological innovation in footwear soles; boost foam. Now I’m a nike guy, but boost foam is good. real good. The shoe had very little personality. I think the seat belt looking strap seemed out of place, there were no logos, there were few overlays. The shoe is a very similar shape to the one nike produced, but no longer looks like a gym shoe, it looks like a boot sneaker cross over. I think adidas did a much better job accomplishing a comprehensive shape then did nike, and I always appreciate high end materials and neutral colors. the ridged sole is ridiculous, but I guess the sole had to insinuate that it was different some how, and the sole gave it some personality that the upper was lacking. the shoe had a moderate army boot feel to it. the colors were really great though, I’m sure the quality top notch, and people lost their minds and they sold for $350 and now resell at $2000. This shoe I could honestly see selling quite well at $350 regardless of if kanye’s name was on it or not. at $2000, people would laugh at it. The black pair was really terrible and accentuated all of the bad aspects of the shoe and made less visible any of the good details. I hate the black one, I think its despicable. yet it resells for thousands

Then comes a big rift. Kanye leaves Nike for Adidas. The biggest question on everyone’s mind? Whats going to happen with the red Yeezy’s. Coined the “Red Octobers” for their supposed release October release date, the shoe was seem multiple times on kanye’s feet and on sneaker blogs and instagrams. October came and went without a release, and many months passed. people figured the shoe was scrapped due to kanye’s departure. then on a random day in february, months after kanye’s move to adidas, nike tweeted a link to purchase the Red Octobers. The shoe now fetches over $5000 and is arguable one of the most sought after sneakers to ever release to the public. This is possibly the ugliest shoe in history. It took everything cool about the silhouette and turned it monotone in a hideous shade of red. none of the details were visible unless the shoe was closely inspected, and there was no glow sole. but the hype was there and no one cared. they just wanted what everyone else wanted for no reason other than hype

I’ve been inspired to review something near and dear to my heart. shoes. the focus is a stupid trend in shoes ala kanye west. Now Kanye had a nike deal, and everything he wore turned to gold. Random running shoes and sports wear classics went from the outlet store sales rack to most searched items on eBay. I once had a discussion about how terrible the Nike Airmax 90 independence day pack was with a guy who worked at a shoe store. They couldn't get rid of them. Then Kanye wore them in all red. The shoe that retailed for at most $150 is now worth close to $1000. Additionally, the two other colors in this collection shot up in value, and Kanye never even wore them! People know nothing about how undesired and not limited the shoe was until Kanye put it on his foot, now people go stupid over it. Idiocity. Another running shoe, which was popular for sure but nothing insane, was seen on Kanye’s foot in all white. good luck getting your hands on a pair after that. the silhouette that hit outlets now cannot be found in a single color for anywhere near the retail price.

John Byam is an artist that works mostly in wood, wood shavings, and glue. design observer did some article on how ‘first impressions are usually wrong, I didnt pay this guy any piece of mind and then I realized how the incredible delicacy of this art made it so elegant’ (paraphrased). No. This isn’t what actually happened John Foster, you turd. What happened was you saw this art and didnt think it was by some well known artist so you didn’t pay it any piece of mind. Why didnt you pay it any piece of mind? simple. this art is shit. its extremely underwhelming and simple. this is the classic “I could've done that” “yeah but you didn’t” bull shit argument that goes on when bullshit art goes platinum. For some reason some bougie art critic wanted to boost this guy, whether he was paid or he just wanted to feel important “i found it first” or “I said it was great before everyone else and they all followed”. Regardless it was something stupid that now has a guy that does arts and crafts with popsicle sticks sitting in the lime light. and stupid ass John Foster sips the Kool-aid so damn hard and confides to the hype and claims that it was a “by chance revisiting” that some how changed his mind and not some outside bullshit. jesus christ this makes me angry.

Davidcarsondesign.com is a portfolio website for graphic designer david carson. The front page would be really cool if it was optimized to the size of my laptop screen, which as you can see it is not. navigating this website is hard. if you scroll right you get a bit of an about the artist and what he’s working on, if you continue right you’ll see many of his pieces until you reach a gigantic section of blank white webpage. by a stroke of luck I realize i could scroll down. the line below was more examples of his work, and when you reached where the first line ended there was some contact info, then back to more work, then more blank white space. Almost half of the webpage is blank white space. its as though this is a huge picture and only half of it is finished, and you're zoomed in and are scrolling around looking at it. from a UI, I give this website a 2/10, because its at least a halfway creative thought, unless its just a mindlessly thrown together page, in that case this sucks. Also his font choice reads 90s computer yet he designs futuristic cars and skateboards and things. not a great choice.

Chip Kidd is a graphic designer. When he isn't using graphics he usually sticks to a screen print style and text on a grid. he commonly uses contrasting colors and bring colors to build hierarchy. his work seems to be heavily influenced by older works and styles

If AIGA Medalist and ADC Hall of Fame member Robert Brownjohn (1925–1970) is remembered by the younger generation today, it may be for the film title sequence in the 1964 James Bond thriller, Goldfinger. Or maybe it is for designing the 1969 Rolling Stones’ “Let It Bleed” album cover. whatever it is, there is no way in hell I will ever be able to look at a cake and a record and not here “you can't always get what you want” playing in my head. Probably the strangest yet most iconic album cover in my iTunes library growing up, other than maybe Jane’s Addiction; Nothing’s Shocking