1. 鞋子 U9718011 莊凱仱 設計流程

2. That was part of the challenge when designers set out to turn Jerry Gumbert's concept of footwear into reality. In addition to creating a superior product, the designers had to unlearn everything they knew about shoe construction. Gumbert, president of Flexible Footwear Technologies Ltd ., had a vision of footwear that works with the human body. He researched foot anatomy and shoes for years before concluding that he could develop something better and asked Design Central for help. The goal: to reinvent what we think of as shoes. Designers began by ignoring traditional shoemaking methods, nearly unchanged since the Industrial Revolution. Instead, they delved into Gumbert's research notes. The designers did not realize, at first, that they were about to revolutionize footwear. They quickly discovered that shoes don't need their usual components to protect feet, absorb shock, and accommodate the elements. In fact, they found that these components could actually contribute to the foot ailments the shoewearing population complains about. Challenge 挑戰 Concept 概念 , 觀念 , 思想 Technologies Ltd 技術有限公司 Construction 建造 , 建設

3. With the learning and unlearning process complete, the designers jumped into the conceptualization phase , hand-sketching various takes on flexible footwear and rejecting more than five hundred versions. They worked closely with vendors to create components and find flexible materials capable of absorbing shock and guarding against the elements. Next, they built three-dimensional models using a variety of materials over a last, the form on which shoes are built. The result is a shoe that is flexible enough to wring out, literally. The old way of thinking is gone. Traditional shoes have an arch support, a rigid member that prevents the foot from flexing and expanding. If a foot doesn't expand, the shoe doesn't have to move and expand with it. Without the arch support in traditional shoes, your toes would run into the end of your shoes. Gumbert and Design Central based Flexible Footwear on how people walk barefoot on sand, where the foot naturally flexes and expands. conceptualization phase 概念化階段 Rejecting 拒絕 , 抵制 Vendors 賣主 three-dimensional models 三维模型

4. They built the shoe to accommodate the foot's four arches, allowing for unlimited flexibility . As for the firm's partnership with Gumbert, Friar adds, "We've become a conduit for the concepts of a visionary. [jerry is] singularly devoted to this product and this concept. [He's not] looking for a payoff but to make a difference to humankind , which is phenomenal. He has an expanding energy bubble around this concept. We use our professionalism without mandating [or] imposing style or fashion. If we were to do that, we'd ruin the product." Market reaction has been positive, especially among consumers seeking comfortable footwear that is body-conscious and earthfriendly. Friar credits the successful design to Gumbert's philosophy of holistic integration. "Everything is connected to everything," says Friar. "Change one material here, and it affects something else." Accommodate 使適應 ; 使相符 Flexibility 易曲性 ; 適應性 , 靈活性 ; 彈性 Payoff 收益 Humankind 人類 Imposing 壯觀的 ; 氣勢宏偉的 ; 莊嚴的 ; 給人深刻印象的

5. Next, Design Central went to its vendors to create the tooling which involved a learning curve . The initial rollout went to small retailers, then podiatrists , chiropractors , and apothecaries. "We took the product to market in a small way, and we're having it grow from there," says Friar. Throughout most of the design process, few computer tools available to the designers allowed the creation of free-form, undulating shapes. "The shoe was complex, and some of the early computer tools had limitations that wouldn't allow us to do everything we needed," says Timothy A. Friar, vice president of Design Central. When the team was ready to turn the prototype into a mass-producible product, computers were finally integrated into the process. Friar estimates that the project was completed half by hand and half on the computer. If the project were started today, he thinks they'd probably still do a lot of the work by hand because the shoe's organic shape would be tough to achieve on the computer. Once they arrived at the computer stage, however, it proved an enormous time-saver; designers generated as many as forty shoe sizes from one part using a proprietary process created by Design Central that takes into account that foot dimensions do not change proportionally. learning curve 經驗曲線 podiatrists 足病醫生 Chiropractors 按摩醫生 Undulating 波動 Prototype 原型 ; 標準 ; 模範 Dimensions 維度