chris bell

Saturday 3 December 2011

Secondary Research

In continuation to the Primary Research brief, we have been asked to look into a certain type of footwear we find interesting. I have chosen the football boots as my footwear.

The main purpose of the football boot is grip and stability on the pitch and nowadays boots have a variety of changeable studs and blades designed for different pitches and weather types.

The first evidence of the existence of a boot especially for football, was found in the 1500s and were found to belong to Henry VIII. Football then lost popularity until the late 1800s where the game remerged along with the first mass produced boot. The boot was all leather with 6 studs, and they stayed this way until the mid 1900s.

example of an early football boot.




As the years passed, different manufacturers appeared with new designs and unique features, but none of these really challenged the dominance of adidas and Puma. In 1995, the first Adidas Predator was released, this boot has gone on to massive success, and is still being redeveloped and re-released nowadays. The main boot manufacturers now are Adidas, Puma and Nike, although smaller companies have a big say in the market.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xiEzBniB88 - History of the Adidas Boot.


the latest Adidas Predator.
http://soccerreviews.com/news/history-of-the-adidas-predator/
here is a in-depth history of the Predator.



The future of football boots
Football boots are now starting to be aimed at certain players and roles. A Canadian company called Concave have released a boot that increases the 'sweet spot' of the ball by 400% and stats have proved that this improve the power and accuracy of a strike.


Concave boot

Primary Research

The brief has asked us to look at shoes and find an illustrator/designer we like the style of. I have come across a Yorkshire artist called Mark hearld. He studied at both the Glasgow School and Art and the Royal Collage of Art, before graduating as an illustrator. he has taken inspiration from Edward Bawden, John piper and Picasso.
This is my favorite piece by Hearld. he tends to use a variety of materials in his artwork and this is no exception. To create the buildings in the background he has used newspaper.

In addition, we were asked to photograph a range of different footwear in a variety of backgrounds. Here are some of my favourite images ;