Hasta La Ideas

Our sister portfolio site Coroflot is pleased to announce a unique opportunity for footwear designers to develop their portfolios and get their foot in the door, so to speak. Once again, we are sponsoring five scholarships for PENSOLE‘s annual Future of Footwear Awards and Master Class, held in partnership with FN Platform at MAGIC and Zappos.com.

To hear PENSOLE founder D’Wayne Edwards tell it, “Our mission is to provide aspiring footwear designers a platform to create their own brand and become the future of the footwear industry. This year we are welcoming Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) and Coroflot as scholarship partners to reach an even larger base of emerging talent.”

Future of Footwear entrants are required to “submit an original shoe design drawn by hand and rendered in color, using a marker” on the Mesh01 platform by May 26. PENSOLE will announce the 20 winners live on Google+ the following week, each of whom will receive scholarships to experience PENSOLE’s rigorous “learn by doing” curriculum, in which students are assigned projects in the following categories:

1. Athletic – Footwear designed to help perform a sport or activity better

2. Dress – Footwear designed to wear at formal events

3. Kids – Footwear designed for kids of all ages

4. Made in USA – Footwear designed for manufacture in the USA

5. Sustainable – Footwear designed with recyclable materials and more efficient manufacturing processes

Coroflot will award one scholarship in each of the five categories, as will our friends at IDSA; the last ten will be selected by PENSOLE. All students will have an additional merit-based opportunity to present samples of their work at a major tradeshow:

At the end of the third week of class, a panel of industry judges and the PENSOLE Google+ community will vote to select 10 semi-finalists who will have samples of their designs made and be awarded a trip to Las Vegas to have their designs on display at the PENSOLE booth at FN PLATFORM, August 19-21, 2013.

(more…)