Greetings From ... Berlin Shoe

I have one shoe left to design and wanted to spend some time looking at the possibilities so that I could choose a city that contrasts with the ones I had already chosen. I drew up a list of the most famous in the world that threw up group of cities with a range of geographical and cultural differences.

I decided to research Sneakerstuff in Stockholm as it is very different from the other cities I have researched.

Through my research I found some very interesting possibilities but some of them were too similar to the other cities. lots of the historical information I researched was quite dark and in a lot of cases vague and treated more as legend than historical fact. I was struggling to find anything I wanted to used to make up they shoe and lost enthusiasm. I decided to move on to another city.

Berlin appealed to me instantly as a city with an incredibly diverse and interesting history. I wanted to illustrate cultural and historical elements of the city concentrating on the positive but without avoiding important historical events. I thought I could include the Berlin wall using famous artwork that was painted on it. the bear on the coat of arms was appealing to me and provided a character for me to try and fit into the design. Einstein became well known while working in berlin and I though I could use an image of him to show Berlin's standing at the forefront of technology and science.

I also wanted to find a way to include some of the architecture from the city.

I sketched a few ideas down and thought I could combine certain elements like Thierry Noir's characters from the Berlin wall and a portrait of Albert Einstein. While looking at architecture in berlin I came across the house of the World's Culture that is a curved building I thought would make a good cuff for the shoe. I wanted to find a way to add an old film camera or projector to represent the Berlinale film festival.