Gang,
I was minding my own business the other day, browsing various design competitions that are not too expensive to take part in when I ran into something that immediately threw me back in time. Back to my teenage days.
Dr. Martens footwear announced a footwear design competition where everybody has a chance to apply their design for boots and submit to their panel review.

The best designs will be applied to Dr. Martens next boots.

I don’t know about you, but when I was (a bit) younger I (of course) had my favorite pair of boots. You know the worn out footwear that you just can’t get let go. Until they are worn-out to the extend where toes are popping out. And then you spend the rest of the year trying to find the exact copy of them, but no matter how similar or even identical they are, the feeling is just never the same.

Of course.

I had a pair too. I wore it for years. Until they became so dilapidated as to be unwearable. I still keep them somewhere at my mothers place just for the sake of keeping staff that I just can’t threw away for some emotional reasons. (I guess it has something to do with letting go of the youth days :))

So, of course, no need to say it, I jumped onto that competition and created several designs of my own in an instance.

So far, my Photoshop Brushes were applied to many many different media, but to apply them on boots, and Dr. Martens ones? That never occurred to me as an idea. I don’t know if my designs will be selected or not, but it was a real pleasure to create them.

If you feel inspired, throw your own designs using my brushes (it is in line with Terms of Use so don’t worry :)) – And, of course, show me what you did 🙂 I’d love to see your ideas!
Love,
Silvia

P.S.
You know, it got me thinking this Dr. Martens boots design competition. Now, this is one brilliant marketing strategy they implemented here. Why?

1. They raise visibility involving their customers into active participation in the production process. For free.
2. They get information on what direction to take in their next designs and that info comes from their own target audience. (Very important!)
3. All these people who make designs they will write about it on their blogs (check my post for instance), send links by email, post on forums etc etc… so it is kinda huge free marketing for Dr. Martens Company making them even more popular and raising their visibility.
4. People create their own galleries on http://www.dmbootdesign.com/ so it’s kind a community building at the same time.

Very nice!