Last week, Nike announced the launch of its Makers’ Experience, an invite-only, limited-time event where people can design a pair of shoes and have them made in less than hour. And today we had the chance to check it out for ourselves at the company’s By You Studio in New York City, a space created to take you through the process of making your own custom shoe from start to finish. That means being able to choose from a set of four different graphic packs, including the camouflage pattern pictured above, and the colors you want on the upper of your sneakers. The midsole will be white by default.
I went with pink complemented by black tones, but you could have it be mostly white with blue, green, yellow or red. And if you’re not into camo, you can also pick a design that displays different pieces of text, such as your name, a date or a greeting like “Happy Birthday!” For this particular experience, Nike is letting users tinker with the Presto, a running silhouette that has a reputation of being one of the most comfortable the company makes. There’s the original Presto, which features shoelaces and a cage to hold them, and the slip-on Presto X, created exclusively by Nike’s Advanced Innovation team for the Makers’ Experience.
The entire process is fairly simple: You walk into the By You Studio and put on a pair of Prestos that act as a white canvas. Then you step into a contraption that projects light onto the upper and lets you see how your designs looks in real time, right there on your feet as you’re trying them on. Nike says it worked on this technology with W+K Lodge, a firm that experiments with artificial intelligence, virtual reality and more emerging mediums “to design experiences that people will care about.”
Source: Engadget
