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Shoe Designer |
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Description Fashion has played an important part in human cultures for thousands and thousands of years. Designers have been making clothing, shoes, and accessories out of beads, cotton, leather, fur, feathers, plastics, and metals for eons. They are talented, trained, and skilled artisans who create wearable, functional art. Shoe designers have a special role in the fashion design industry. Perhaps the most technical of the design careers, shoe designers combine anatomy, fine art, kinesiology, marketing, engineering, fashion, beauty, and industrial design to create interesting, durable, and attractive footwear for all occasions. They can work on their own, creating imaginative, exclusive pieces to sell in boutiques, at fairs, and through clothing stores, or they work on staff with a manufacturing company, creating designs for mass creation and sale. Those who work independently have greater freedom, in that they can create work on commission for individual clients, according to the clients' tastes, personalities, and wallets, as well as create work to sell according to their own tastes and preferences. They sell their work through catalogs, online, and in their own boutiques. They may even host their own fashion shows. The drawback is the freedom goes along with job uncertainty, and there are no fringes like benefits and paid vacation days. Many of them also have to assist in the production of their designs, at least when they are starting out. Designers who join teams at major labels and manufacturing companies have more job benefits, but are less able to create and produce shoes according to their own ideas. They follow the lead of the company's traditions, senior designers, and executives. They may also study designs created by the top shoe designers and modify them for the manufacturing company they work for. However they choose to work, a shoe designer must start each project according to a plan. They make sketches and design choices according to the specifications of their client, the senior artists, or their own ideas and dreams. This can involve a lot of discussion, especially if the shoes are to be exclusive, or one-of-a-kind creations. After making scale drawings, they make a pattern, and then oversee the creation of a prototype, or sample shoe. They then oversee the shoe's mass production, ensuring that everything is going according to plan. Shoes play major roles in North American society. We wear them for support during sports, we wear them for dancing and for stylish nights on the town. We wear them for status, we wear them for comfort, we wear them for safety. Shoes are everywhere, and everyone owns at least one pair. Shoe designers are responsible for caring for our feet, as they design functional, interesting shoes for all of life's occasions. |
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Sources:
Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2014-15 Edition, http://www.bls.gov/ooh/ Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Employment Statistics, 2002, http://www.bls.gov/oes/2002/oes_nat.htm |
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