Shoe Design Book Reviews:

I’ve read a great many shoe design books, so I would like you to see what is out there and available. I have picked a selection of shoe trade books on shoe design, manufacturing, and engineering. Here is a list of great footwear design books. Included are few books about shoemaking and shoe design that are available on Amazon.com now:

 Shoe Material Design Guide:

The shoe designers complete guide to selecting and specifying footwear materials
by Wade Motawi  $39.99 Softcover

What Amazon says:  “Do you want to be a professional shoe designer? You must learn how to select and specify shoe materials correctly. The Shoe Material Design Guide details all the materials you will need to make modern athletic, classic casuals and high fashion footwear. Written as a companion to our best selling How Shoes are Made, The Shoe Material Design Guide digs deep into the world of footwear materials and design. A must-read for young shoe designers! “

What I have to say: If you want to see what Nike shoes are made of? Then the Shoe Material Design guide is just for you. I really like the cut shoe cross-sections. I recommend it for sure, this is a shoe design book that definitely belongs in your library.

 How to Start Your Own Shoe Company:

A start-up guide to designing, manufacturing, and marketing shoes.
by Wade Motawi  $39.99 Softcover

What Amazon says:  “Do you dream of creating a shoe brand and starting a company? In the book, How to Start Your Own Shoe Company, you follow two start-up companies from initial launch to retail sales and marketing. Both companies have a unique style, budget, and business plan. In each of the 14 chapters, a requirement or process is clearly described and you will learn how each of the two new shoe brands will best tackle this challenge. How to Start Your Own Shoe Company will guide you through creating your brand identity, legally setting up your shoe company, and registering your trademarks. You will also learn how to design and manufacture your shoes, how to find the best shoe factory, and how to go about selling your shoes.

Many other topics such as importing shoes, working with international distributors, calculating profit margins, paying overseas vendors, and necessary capital requirements will also be covered so you can get your startup moving forward right away. How to Start Your Own Shoe Company is arranged in chronological order, following the shoe company start-up process from initial design, through development, production, sales, marketing, and distribution.

There are more than 100 full-color drawings, photos, charts, infographics, spreadsheets, and sample forms to clearly illustrate the complete process. This book will help you meet many challenges and be your complete guide to making your own shoe company come to life!

12 chapters, 170 pages, 115 full-color photos, charts, and graphs. ”

What I have to say: If you are thinking about starting your own shoe businesses, read this book!  Tons of great information you won’t find anywhere else. This is a shoemaking book that belongs in your bookcase!

Fashionary Shoe Design:

by Fashionary   $44.00 Hardcover

What Amazon says:  “Differing from ordinary shoe design books, this is a complete handbook geared towards practical usage by footwear designers. It includes three main sections: Shoe Style Library, Shoe Encyclopaedia, and Shoe Templates for Tracing. The first section features more than 300 styles of shoes, ranging from historical archetypes to the most signature styles in todays footwear industry. The second focuses on essential and practical information on shoe design, from materials and construction to labels and international fairs. The templates section includes both basic templates and templates for 60 styles of common footwear, from flats and boots to high heels.”

What I have to say: I think you will really like this book.  Plenty of cool stuff to keep you busy. Great templates for both tracing and sketching. A good warmup on basic shoe design and shoemaking. A great book that belongs in your library.

How Shoes are Made:

A behind the scenes look at a real Shoe Factory
by Wade Motawi  $39.99 Softcover Newly Updated 3d Edition

What Amazon says:  “Do you want to learn about how modern athletic shoes are really made? This is the shoe design book for you.  Now you can really see how the big shoe brands design and produce shoes. More than just a guided tour through a sneaker factory, How Shoes are Made will show you how modern sports shoes come to life from drawing designs to sample development and manufacturing. Footwear design and manufacturing is simply explained for sneakerheads, students, young professionals, or anyone interested in the shoe trades. Written by a veteran shoe professional, How Shoes are Made will give you a look inside the real world of shoe production. 28 Chapters explain Shoe Design, Development, Materials, Stitching, Outsoles and Tooling, EVA Forming, Final Assembly, Shoe lasts, Shoe prices, Quality control, and much more! 250 Pages with over 400 color photos.

If you are a sneaker collector, design student, or just interested in shoes, read on. “

What I have to say: I think you will really like this book. Much more than a “how to” book,  How Shoes are Made has tons of inside information. It teaches you about how to prepare your design for production, the stages of design, and materials. It is a very solid primer for the world of production shoemaking. This is a shoe design book with much more! A great book for shoe designers. A must read in order to jump-start a career in the shoe trades! I recommend it.

Render Demo How To Draw ATHLETIC SHOES:

Drawing and Sketching Shoes using templates and guidelines.
by Mark Kokavec  $33.00 Hardcover
What Amazon says:  “The Render Demo How to Draw ATHLETIC SHOES sketchbook is a great tool for students, sneaker enthusiasts and designers looking to learn how to draw and sketch shoes. This unique sketchbook shows you how to set up different perspective views including side, front, heel, top down, bottom and more. It contains over 100 photo-blue templates and guidelines that you can use as underlays to sketch your own unique creative shoe designs. The goal with this book is that once your finished, you will not need to rely on any guidelines for sketching your concepts. This sketchbook also contains general footwear knowledge, terms, industry information, reference materials and more. Its more than just a typical plain old sketchbook filled with blank pages.
• Anatomy of the Foot: Understanding the basic parts of the human foot
• Anatomy of the Shoe: Break down of the different parts of a shoe
• Shoe Types: A look at some common shoe types
• Proportions: Step-by-step description on how to build the shape of a shoe.
•Perspectives: Step-by-step description on how to set up the shoe using different angle
• Templates: Our unique “Phase-out” template system”

What I have to say: The Render Demo How to Draw ATHLETIC SHOES sketchbook is exactly that – a great sketchbook. I really like it for that aspect, however, it’s very thin on details of shoe designing and has nothing to say about what it takes to make that drawing into a real shoe. I still do recommend this book to get your drawings skills up to scratch. I own the books and I use it often to keep my sketching skills crisp. Even though there are many shoe design books, this is a good one, and it belongs in your library.

The Sneaker Coloring Book

by Henrik Klingel (Author), Daniel Jarosch (Author)
$19.95 Paperback

What Amazon says:  “A coloring book for grown-ups, The Sneaker Coloring Book is a collection of 100 black and white line drawings of popular sneaker designs, shown in side view, to color, alter, or customize. The models featured are 100 of the most popular designs from 1916 to the present day from 18 major brands including Adidas, Converse, New Balance, Nike, Onitsuka Tiger, Puma, Reebok, and Vans. Brand, model name, launch date, and category are listed for each sneaker. The drawings are printed on high-quality drawing paper and the pages are perforated so that a drawing can be removed once completed.
Taking a fun and highly original approach to sneaker culture, the book will appeal to anyone who likes to color and customize their sneakers, to fashion and footwear designers, illustrators, graphic designers and, above all, to the sneaker fanatics who want to own every book about their favorite subject.”

What I have to say:  This is a must for shoe designers! All the classics are in here ready to be used as an underlay for your new shoe designs. Nice dark lines will show through tracing paper. Lots of fun and not expensive. I have a very well used copy of this book.  I recommend it.

Footwear Design (Portfolio Skills: Fashion & Textiles)

Paperback    by Aki Choklat   $28.00 Softcover

What Amazon says:  “Footwear design has become the new dream career, and this book is the first guide to show the key skills and tips behind the trade, for both budding designers and anyone interested in shoes. Illustrated throughout with inspirational sketchbooks detailing the design process and specially commissioned images of cutting-edge shoe design, the book also contains case studies featuring an array of international shoe designers.”

What I have to say: Footwear Design (Portfolio Skills: Fashion & Textiles) is a well-written book that is focused on women’s fashion shoes. Some very nice exploded views and shoe pattern part layouts. I like the views of shoe patterns on lasts. Not such a fan of fashion designer interviews, but I say worth a look if fashion shoes are your interest. I recommend it.

Pattern Cutting: Step by Step Patterns for Footwear

Paperback   by Frank Jones    Price varies Softcover

What Amazon says:  “Pattern Cutting replaces the Pattern Cutter’s Handbook which since 1991 has become the standard textbook on many college and university courses covering footwear, all over the English speaking world. The new book covers everything in the earlier book plus much more. Not only are there whole new chapters covering further styles of footwear, there is a chapter on Bottom Patterns, an extended chapter on Grading, and a chapter on dealing with more advanced pattern problems such as a bellows-tongue.

In the past, books on pattern cutting have often reflected the mystique which tends to surround the subject. Pattern Cutting takes a completely different approach. The whole book is written as an easy to use, step-by-step guide to producing patterns for shoemaking. 

Each major type of footwear has a complete chapter devoted to it. The twelve basic types covered include trainers, basketball boots and an aerobic shoe. Most pages have two or three diagrams, illustrating each step in the process.

With each footwear type there is a detailed description of the process with measurements given wherever appropriate. Points to watch for and pitfalls to avoid are spelled out, so as to ensure the reader will stand the best possible chance of producing a workable pattern first time.”

What I have to say: I do own the book and have found it very useful. It has 17 chapters covering the many types of footwear patterns. I found chapter 2 on the Forme cutting of the shell last to be the most important for my projects. If you are going to cut your own patterns, I recommend Pattern Cutting: Step by Step Patterns for Footwear. This can be hard to find online, as on amazon the price is crazy. I had to order directly from the UK www.noblefootwear.com.

Handbook of Footwear Design and Manufacture

(Woodhead Publishing Series in Textiles) Hardcover
by A Luximon (Editor)   $237.00 Hard Cover
What Amazon says:  “Understanding footwear design and manufacture is vital for improving the functionality, aesthetics and marketability of a product. The Handbook of footwear design and manufacture provides a comprehensive review of footwear production and design and explores how these processes are used across a variety of application areas.

Part one, an introductory section, reviews the fundamentals of footwear anatomy; chapters discuss the anatomy of the human foot, biomechanics and gait, foot models and measurements, the development of the foot in childhood and adolescence, and foot problems and their implications for footwear design. Part two examines footwear design including the development of shoe design, foot sketch templates, and footwear drawing templates. Aspects of footwear manufacture are highlighted in part three including the design, manufacture, and sizing and grading of shoe lasts. Further chapters focus on the footwear business, advertising, and the environmental impact of footwear manufacture. Part four explores the design and manufacture of footwear for specific applications and includes chapters on footwear for cold weather, textiles and other materials used in the production of protective military and orthopaedic footwear, and design issues in geriatric footwear.

The Handbook of footwear design and manufacture is a wide-ranging and technical resource for footwear designers, materials scientists and researchers involved in the production of footwear, and professionals in the footwear industry looking to expand their knowledge of design and manufacture processes. Discusses foot anatomy in detail and considers its implications for footwear design.”

What I have to say: The Handbook of Footwear Design and Manufacture is very dense. It may belong in your book-case but it’s definitely not a page-turner. Its massive price tag is also a bummer, making it well out of reach for anyone not in the trades. I’m not sure I can recommend it.

The Science of Footwear (Human Factors and Ergonomics)

by Ravindra S. Goonetilleke (Editor)  $150.00 Hardcover
What Amazon says: “Although we now have sophisticated algorithms and techniques for determining the shapes and sizes and for matching the fit between shoes and feet, few, if any, of the books currently available cover these new technologies until now. Bringing together high-quality and state-of-the-art contributions from designers, biomechanists, ergonomists, engineers, podiatrists, and scientists from industry and academia, The Science of Footwear provides an in-depth understanding of the technology and techniques involved in the design and development of a popular and demanding consumer product.

This book introduces the design, development, manufacturing, and marketing of footwear. The chapters contain data from past research and the state-of-the art methodologies. They not only cover every aspect of the product design, but also how the footwear industry caters to the wide-ranging needs of sophisticated and demanding customers.

The footwear industry has rapidly changed over the last 10 years. Mass production has changed to personalization and mass customization, areas that are not well-understood. This book explores these different concepts in a coherent way, drawing on differing views that give a holistic view of the science behind footwear. Collating information from different disciplines, the book provides the tools to develop the next generation of footwear.”

What I have to say:  I have to say I’ve not gotten my hands on The Science of Footwear. Looking forward to reading it this summer!