Why should graphic designers care about the world of fashion design? Innovation in graphic design can’t come from the bubble of self reference. While we can still get a few new and fresh ideas from looking at other graphic designers, we really have to look elsewhere for inspiration. While other arts like photography and painting have a special place in our hearts dating back to our college days, fashion is a major area of design that most graphic designers didn’t get any play with in art school.

photo credit: sheilaellen

The world of fashion design is one of the most innovative, colorful and accessible design professions. Everyone wears clothes. An understanding of fashion and following the fast moving trends of clothing really can help a graphic designer appeal to it’s audience. If I want to reach people in Baltimore, looking at what colors and styles are happening in fashion there could give a huge edge in understanding.

With the launch of Zazzle’s custom Keds print-on-demand shoe line, it seems like a good opportunity to talk about all of the different custom shoe options online. In addition to Zazzle, companies including Converse, Vans, Nike and others offer configurable customized shoes.

Zazzle has teamed up with Keds to provide a fully custom printed shoe . Every surface of the shoe’s fabric can be printed so you can use your creative spirit to make all kinds of designs, patterns and effects. They only have kids and women’s shoes right now. If and when they introduce men’s shoes, I’ll definitely want a pair for myself! They currently cost between $50 and $60, not bad at all.

Zazzle’s custom shoes allow for printing on all sides of the fabric.

As blogger Sam Woodfin mentions, it’s not 100% clear how the design changes with different sizes. On their t-shirts, the design stays at a fixed size for different shirt sizes. That wouldn’t work with shoes. The product images seem to update with the different sizes, so I hope they are accurate. The FAQ seems incomplete; I’m left with questions answered like if they have plans for men’s shoes. Still it looks like an exciting announcement and hopefully these questions will be answered in time.

Converse has customized shoes with a number of options and shoe styles. While it’s not as fully customizable as you might want, they offer enough options to give you more unique looks than their off the shelf shoes. You can select different sections including the stitch color. Select colors/patterns to make unique combinations in the end. Some parts have more options than others with the fabric pieces having the most options. You can also have text stitched into part of the shoe. I have leather shoes in a customized brown and yellow with the back sitched with “SKETCHEE”. Canvas shoes are $60 and leather styles are $75.

Custom Vans‘ are similar to the Converse customizations, but with fewer color options and with fewer pieces to customize. There are currently only two choices to pick from.

NikeID also gives a few custom color areas and allows you to search their database by color for preselected combos. Depending on the style of shoe, you can print a laser engraved repeating pattern of text or even switch out some fabric parts for leather although not a full leather shoe like converse.

A fairly ugly custom shoe I came up wth to illustrate the NikeID shoe.

Check to see if your favorite shoes have online customization options by visiting their website. More and more brands are doing it.

Want to easily hem your jeans, keeping the original seam? Originally posted on Fig and Plum’s post Hemming Jeans Without Looking Stoopid, Redux was a Word document that had disappeared from Cavaricci’s site. I had put up an html version just to make it easier to read a while back. Not everyone has Word and seeing it in your web browser is convenient. I’m reformatting it today as a Wordpress post for easy content management. Make sure to send your thanks to Fig and Plum, a great site to add to your RSS reader!

Step 1

Start by making a cuff, like this one. The idea is to have the wear on the hem stitching show. Then figure out how many inches you need to take off.

Step 2

Now for the fun stuff! Divide the amount your taking off in 1/2 and place your tape measure or small ruler on the edge of the hem. Measure the same amount all around the hem, and pin in sections to make sure you will take off the same amount all around.

Step 3

Place the sewing foot on the edge of the hem, like shown above, and slowly stitch the cuff all the way around. Make sure that it measures the same all the way around.

Step 4

Okay, the hard work is all over. The original worn hem and stitching should be visible. If it’s not, then it’s either time to start over, or it’s time to let the pros handle it.

Step 5

Push the extra fabric inside upwards if it is a small amount. If it’s a huge wad of fabric then grab your scissors and cut off some of the extra fabric, leaving about 3/4″ to allow for fraying in the wash.

Step 6

Turn the leg right side out and lay it flat. With your fingertips, press the seam you just created flat.

Step 7

On the inside of the leg, use your iron to press the extra fabric upwards.

Step 8

Then press the outside of the leg until it is nice and flat.

Admire your work!

There you have it! Can you tell the difference?

Update Aug 8, 2008. This forum thread linked to this page with some additional suggestions to ensure an even better hem. “just line everything up, and every couple of inches, make a stitch through the folded fabric, and then through your jeans (be sure to go vertically so it blends better). Go around a couple times in the same area (1mm apart x 3stitches is the best bet) and then tie them in double, triple, whatever knots, tie very well, and tight, and then snip off your excess. Maybe hit the fabric glue right on the knot to stabilize it.” Visit that thread for the full conversation

More resources

How to Hem Jeans from Dacia Ray

Hemming Jeans, A Tutorial from Canadian Crafter

Blind Hem Jeans from Burda Style

T-shirts are a pretty cool form of expression. They can look like anything. They can be inspiring. They can define you as a person. Sometimes they’re a bit too casual , but they can have an upscale feel with the right design. Here’s a look at some t-shirts, followed up with some links to t-shirt design tutorials and galleries so you can get more shirty goodness.

This is one of my favorites. I love the colors and asymmetrical design

Jenga fans? Or construction workers?

“A is for Apple” it says. It’s a print of a hand painted ink art piece translated into a pretty interesting t-shirt.

Running with scissors

In the eye of the beholder. I don’t know if I like the image itself, but I like the way its done.

Conezor? Just wierd. We all do scream for ice scream

Wasn’t There Will Be Blood an odd movie?

As much as I love color, I couldn’t resist this long sleeve shirt. It’s just a cool high constrast design.

Paint by Numbers. For the artist in every nonartist. Or if you just remember paint by numbers stuff.

I’m not a weiner. Just a fun style and much like the others on here

A vintage woodstock poster on a shirt. Very cool image

Design your own

Here are a few pages about designing your own shirts that I found. I definitely want to do more shirt design, these things help inspire me to get started. Posting things here sure makes it easier for me to find things again when I need them…
• Designing Ultra SceneXCore Apparel!
• From Sketch to Vector Illustration

• Intricate Patterns in Illustrator

Want to see more t-shirts?

• Troundup. The T-shirt Lovers Blog.
• Busted Tees
• Ten Bills (T-shirts for only $10 or less)
• A T-Shirt Reviewer Reviews T-Shirt Review Sites!

Manolo for the Men is one of my favorite blogs. The text is always so short and to the point. The pictures are priceless and demonstrative. I ramble on too much and am too formal here. Take the post about the sucky new polo brand’s logo. Izzy is brash; I love it!

Here’s a cool link: Luis Santi Jr.

The retro look is everywhere in design right now. Check out my new converse shoes. So old style.

A while ago got some like, boys size 12 Levi’s. They’re really thin and yeah they’re a bit short. I bought them anyway I wear them with black socks and you know what I think it looks really modern and cool. Only because they’re real thin straight leg pants, it would be dumb if they were even a little baggy and you had pants that short… But people go “You’re pants are short….” So just now I’m listening to the GQ Podcast, and I’m happy to report that thin pants are real in. That you probably new because you look around and see it everywhere. And thin short pants are really big right night with a few New York designers. But you got to be thin. To me on tall people it looks a little less cool. for shorter guys definitely hot. I seen a few people do it and it looks good to me. But it has to look on purpose

So the weathers cooled down and it’s jacket weather. I’m liking it. I really wear a lot of the same clothes year round but I can do them differently and it’s a lot more fun in the fall. I dunno if I really need to be buying anything, but I was looking through my fashion newsfeeds and yeah Men’s Flair recommends cardigans. I don’t own any, but I might see how I look. I like that Yoox one there, but I’m paying $318…

The jacket I been wearing I love. I got it over the summer and just never got to wear it until lately. I might take a pic.

Here’s men.style.com’s what to wear for fall

From Hecht’s. $24. Rang up 90% off at checkout. Plus 15% Hecht’s card discount. So $2

Underpainting. This went very quickly. The anatomy study helped a lot and I didn’t need to spend as much time searching for the general reference. Still some anatomical problems at this point, notably her arm.

It’s been almost two weeks since the last sketchbook. Here are the pages I selected to scan. Clothed men and women. It’s fun looking through the fashion magazines and internet sites