Innovative shoe lace design
I’m kind of lazy when it comes to tying my shoes. I usually buy shoes that I don’t have to tie at all. But I was coming to Boston and planning to do a lot of walking, so I went out and bought nice new shoes. Of course coming to Boston I had to get New Balance.
The shoelace design on these shoes actually makes me want to tie my shoes. I thought this was a cool thing that they did to revive a struggling institution. The shoelace is a dying breed. If you look at these laces, you see they look like string beans in the pod. They have little bulges every inch or so.
This design helps to prevent the laces from coming untied. The knot kind of locks into the trough next to the bulge. Simple and effective. Very cool idea. And now I tie my shoes and they never come untied unless I want them to.
Great design idea. An example of “form is function”, and “function is king”.
If anyone is interested in shoe laces, I found a site with way more information than you ever knew existed about them. Different lacing patterns, along with the answer to Dale’s different way to tie knots so they go across instead of down your foot like mine.
http://www.shoe-lacing.com/shoelace/index.htm
Matt,
You can find us on different kinds of footwear. Our most popular use is on Snowboard Boots, but we are also partnered with FootJoy for golf, Specialized and Lake for cycling, and Vasque and The North Face for trail running shoes. There are a lot more out there and even more coming.
Glad you like,
Eric
It’s Sketcher Z-Straps for my 6-year old. Only downside is he still can’t tie a pair of shoes :). Oh well, no laces to worry about
@John_P
Hi John and Matt,
These shoe laces have an interesting birth history. In the advanced products group at New Balance we test new shoe sole technologies on volunteer runners across the US. The feedback we typically received contained a lot of noise such as “I enjoyed running in these shoes but my left shoe lace kept coming undone and I tripped on it”. We wanted a way to get the runners to focus on the sole performance and not the upper fit, lacing system, etc.. Hence the birth of the “Sure Lace”.
Matt
What a fun & useful idea! I haven’t seen these in France yet, but then again I haven’t been shoe shopping in awhile. I wonder if shoelaces will eventually disappear? None of my kids’ shoes have them, and I see how much quicker and easier it is for them to get dressed. And nobody trips on rebellious laces either. If it works for them, why not for adults?
I used to tie my shoes as Dale mentioned. My wife re-edumacated me.
I found this interesting:
http://www.core77.com/blog/technology/the_most_important_piece_of_software_for_an_industrial_designer_11788.asp
Nike uses Solidworks (and surfacing!). They were hiring someone with SolidWorks surfacing experience here in St Louis a few months ago to make their mold designs…
The shape of your knot leads me to believe that you are left-handed, and tying half of your knot right-handedly. The bows of the knot should want to lay across your foot, not along them. My wife ties her shoes like this, and they’re always coming untied. Mine rarely come untied.
A coworker (a leftie) pointed this out to me a few years ago. I hadn’t thought about how to tie my shoes since kindergarten. I couldn’t tell you how to tie shows. My hands know how, but htey can’t type…
Matt,
Did you know that New Balance uses SolidWorks in their design process? They build some pretty crazy models.
One of my co-workers, left our company to go work for them as a CAD designer.
John P
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John,
Yes, I remember hearing that, but I don’t trust my memory too much these days. Very cool stuff. It’s hard to imagine SolidWorks doing shapes like these shoes.
I innovate shoe closure everyday at work. Check us out at http://www.boatechnology.com.
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Dude, you’re gonna cost me a lot of money. Where can I get some of THAT?!??