{"id":23184,"date":"2018-12-17T12:49:21","date_gmt":"2018-12-17T12:49:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/industrial-design\/2018\/12\/17\/a-winning-start\/"},"modified":"2023-03-04T16:30:31","modified_gmt":"2023-03-04T21:30:31","slug":"a-winning-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/industrial-design\/2018\/12\/17\/a-winning-start\/","title":{"rendered":"A Winning Start"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Chris<\/a><\/p>\n

Alumn Chris Williams [BID \u201917] recently won one of three footwear design apprenticeships with Adidas by competing against over 1,000 other designers in the international Adidas Design Academy competition. It is a dream opportunity for Williams who has a passion for footwear design and a love of sports, but Williams almost didn\u2019t even enter the competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory\u2014I got the golden ticket. \u2014 Chris Williams\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t even on my radar,\u201d says Williams, who found out about the contest when an Adidas rep came to the College to speak to students. Williams then forgot about the contest, not submitting his portfolio until the last day of the application period. It was such a last-minute turn of fate, Williams\u2014with a hint of nervous excitement in his voice\u2014says, \u201cI feel like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory\u2014I got the golden ticket.\u201d<\/p>\n

The competition required participants to advance through multiple levels and interviews, design challenges, and presentations. To even be eligible, designers had to be recent graduates with less than two years of full-time experience. The first round of the competition advanced participants based on their submitted portfolio. Then the remaining contestants were given a design task to complete. Williams says it was basically \u201cmake a shoe, no rules. I kind of went crazy on it.\u201d The judges must have liked what they saw because Williams was moved on to the third round which involved a short recorded question and response. Finally, Williams was invited to Adidas headquarters in Germany with seven other contestants to give an in-person presentation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was super nervous,\u201d Williams says. \u201cI was exhausted. I was probably only in Germany for 36 hours total. The presentation style was very similar to school, and that was something that I had struggled with in school. But my experience with Student Merit and working with Kelly Umstead really helped me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams was chosen to represent the NC State College of Design at the 2017 Student Merit competition which took place at the Industrial Designers Society of America District Design Conference. One student from each participating school was chosen to compete head-to-head against candidates from other schools. Williams prepared for the Student Merit competition presentation by seeking Assistant Professor of Industrial Design Kelly Umstead<\/a>\u2019s help.<\/p>\n

\"User+Journey<\/a>\u201cI sat right outside Kelly\u2019s office, and she helped me learn to tell a story very quickly. In five or six minutes, you have to tell the story of your work. Figuring out how to do that with Kelly really helped prepare me for Student Merit.\u201d And Student Merit, Williams says, directly helped prepare him for the Adidas competition\u2014\u201cit was a trial run. I was able to apply those lessons to the Adidas competition.\u201d Umstead helped Williams to loosen up and get more comfortable presenting to overcome any stage fright he had. Williams says, \u201cYou can\u2019t sound mechanical or rehearsed. You have to be comfortable enough to actually talk about your work rather than just presenting your work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking back at his time at NC State, Williams also credits his study abroad trip to Prague and his time as a high schooler in Design Camp<\/a>. Design Camp he says, \u201cgave me a comfort level coming into school. I knew where the buildings were. Everything\u2019s new, but camp helps you get a little bit of experience.\u201d And Prague, Williams says \u201cwas definitely a kind of switch for me. I started to put it all together in terms of what I\u2019d learned. Coming back, I was definitely a better student from that point forward. That helped me put the focus on what I wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams became interested in footwear design and sought out opportunities to learn. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to get that experience in the typical ID track,\u201d he says. So Williams and a friend began sketching a sneaker a day, he took an independent study course focused on footwear design with Professor and Department Head of Graphic Design and Industrial Design Tsai Lu Liu, and in the spring of 2017, he studied shoe design in a course offered by Assistant Professor of Art + Design and Director of Art 2 Wear Justin LeBlanc. \u201cThat experience was huge,\u201d Williams says, \u201cbecause I was actually getting to do something with soft goods and footwear design. I could have graduated in the fall. I was done, but I stayed around to take this class.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Williams will move to Portland to begin his new two-year position with Adidas in October. He\u2019s pretty laid back about the move, like he seems to be about most things. \u201cI\u2019ve never been to Portland. Everyone I\u2019ve talked to tells me Portland is awesome, but they\u2019ve never actually been there themselves,\u201d he says with a smile. Williams hasn\u2019t figured out all the logistics of the move or his housing, but he\u2019s not worried. \u201cI\u2019ve got time to figure that out,\u201d he says. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Staci Kleinmaier is a professional writer and photographer in Apex, North Carolina. She uses words and images to tell stories. To see her work, visit\u00a0www.stacikleinmaier.com<\/a><\/u>.\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This post was originally published<\/a> in College of Design Blog.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false,"raw":"\"Chris<\/a>\r\n

Alumn Chris Williams [BID \u201917] recently won one of three footwear design apprenticeships with Adidas by competing against over 1,000 other designers in the international Adidas Design Academy competition. It is a dream opportunity for Williams who has a passion for footwear design and a love of sports, but Williams almost didn\u2019t even enter the competition.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\u201cI feel like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory\u2014I got the golden ticket. \u2014 Chris Williams\u201d<\/blockquote>\r\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t even on my radar,\u201d says Williams, who found out about the contest when an Adidas rep came to the College to speak to students. Williams then forgot about the contest, not submitting his portfolio until the last day of the application period. It was such a last-minute turn of fate, Williams\u2014with a hint of nervous excitement in his voice\u2014says, \u201cI feel like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory\u2014I got the golden ticket.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

The competition required participants to advance through multiple levels and interviews, design challenges, and presentations. To even be eligible, designers had to be recent graduates with less than two years of full-time experience. The first round of the competition advanced participants based on their submitted portfolio. Then the remaining contestants were given a design task to complete. Williams says it was basically \u201cmake a shoe, no rules. I kind of went crazy on it.\u201d The judges must have liked what they saw because Williams was moved on to the third round which involved a short recorded question and response. Finally, Williams was invited to Adidas headquarters in Germany with seven other contestants to give an in-person presentation.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\u201cI was super nervous,\u201d Williams says. \u201cI was exhausted. I was probably only in Germany for 36 hours total. The presentation style was very similar to school, and that was something that I had struggled with in school. But my experience with Student Merit and working with Kelly Umstead really helped me.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Williams was chosen to represent the NC State College of Design at the 2017 Student Merit competition which took place at the Industrial Designers Society of America District Design Conference. One student from each participating school was chosen to compete head-to-head against candidates from other schools. Williams prepared for the Student Merit competition presentation by seeking Assistant Professor of Industrial Design Kelly Umstead<\/a>\u2019s help.<\/p>\r\n

\"User+Journey<\/a>\u201cI sat right outside Kelly\u2019s office, and she helped me learn to tell a story very quickly. In five or six minutes, you have to tell the story of your work. Figuring out how to do that with Kelly really helped prepare me for Student Merit.\u201d And Student Merit, Williams says, directly helped prepare him for the Adidas competition\u2014\u201cit was a trial run. I was able to apply those lessons to the Adidas competition.\u201d Umstead helped Williams to loosen up and get more comfortable presenting to overcome any stage fright he had. Williams says, \u201cYou can\u2019t sound mechanical or rehearsed. You have to be comfortable enough to actually talk about your work rather than just presenting your work.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Looking back at his time at NC State, Williams also credits his study abroad trip to Prague and his time as a high schooler in Design Camp<\/a>. Design Camp he says, \u201cgave me a comfort level coming into school. I knew where the buildings were. Everything\u2019s new, but camp helps you get a little bit of experience.\u201d And Prague, Williams says \u201cwas definitely a kind of switch for me. I started to put it all together in terms of what I\u2019d learned. Coming back, I was definitely a better student from that point forward. That helped me put the focus on what I wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Williams became interested in footwear design and sought out opportunities to learn. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to get that experience in the typical ID track,\u201d he says. So Williams and a friend began sketching a sneaker a day, he took an independent study course focused on footwear design with Professor and Department Head of Graphic Design and Industrial Design Tsai Lu Liu, and in the spring of 2017, he studied shoe design in a course offered by Assistant Professor of Art + Design and Director of Art 2 Wear Justin LeBlanc. \u201cThat experience was huge,\u201d Williams says, \u201cbecause I was actually getting to do something with soft goods and footwear design. I could have graduated in the fall. I was done, but I stayed around to take this class.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\r\n

Williams will move to Portland to begin his new two-year position with Adidas in October. He\u2019s pretty laid back about the move, like he seems to be about most things. \u201cI\u2019ve never been to Portland. Everyone I\u2019ve talked to tells me Portland is awesome, but they\u2019ve never actually been there themselves,\u201d he says with a smile. Williams hasn\u2019t figured out all the logistics of the move or his housing, but he\u2019s not worried. \u201cI\u2019ve got time to figure that out,\u201d he says. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n\r\nStaci Kleinmaier is a professional writer and photographer in Apex, North Carolina. She uses words and images to tell stories. To see her work, visit\u00a0www.stacikleinmaier.com<\/a><\/u>.\u00a0<\/em><\/span>"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chris Williams [BID \u201917] recently won a footwear design apprenticeship with Adidas by competing and being one of the winners in the international Adidas Design Academy competition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":23185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"ncstate_wire","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","ncst_content_audit_display":false,"ncst_backToTopFlag":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-23184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-_from-newswire-collection-279"],"displayCategory":null,"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/industrial-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23184"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/industrial-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/industrial-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/industrial-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/270"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/industrial-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/industrial-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23805,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/industrial-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23184\/revisions\/23805"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/industrial-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/industrial-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/industrial-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/industrial-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}