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Drawing and sketching have all the time been part of Emily Miller’s life. Rising up, she usually watched her mom, a textile designer, spend hours creating issues for enjoyable. Regularly, Emily’s mother invited her and her sisters into the method, displaying them how to attract and use their minds to make issues. 

“I all the time thought of myself good at something art-related due to her,” Miller spoke of these occasions together with her mother. 

She all the time had a tricky time with math and would usually get in bother for having doodles on her pages as a substitute of notes. Her instructors instructed her that if she put half as a lot effort into notes as she did her artwork, she wouldn’t wrestle a lot. 

Unsurprisingly, artwork class is the place she excelled, “partially as a result of artwork is subjective, but additionally as a result of that’s the place I felt most assured,” she mentioned. 

Finally, all of these doodles paid off. Her expertise and ability ultimately led her to her present place as certainly one of Timberland PRO’s main product designers. However connecting the dots wasn’t easy. 

Away from work, Miller enjoys time together with her kiddo (and doggo) within the nice outside; (picture/Emily Miller)

Bored with a educating or high quality arts profession, she regularly discovered her technique to industrial design, the place she landed two internships that might set the groundwork for every little thing to observe. 

“These two internships set me up career-wise,” she mirrored. “One taught me that I may take pleasure in designing merchandise (energy instruments) that weren’t usually designed/marketed to somebody like me (a younger feminine). The opposite taught me that I like sneakers. I graduated school in 2012 with an industrial design excellence award and a job supply for a year-long apprenticeship at Reebok.”

After graduating, Emily was provided a job at Reebok, the place she spent 5 years engaged on the model’s operating and innovation groups. She ultimately migrated to Timberland as a result of she was fascinated by the artistic problem of designing footwear that might perform as extra of a device for working individuals. 

“Security footwear is one thing individuals want — not simply need,” she defined. “I’ve spent the final 7 years engaged on security merchandise for Timberland PRO, and I like working for this model as a result of it pairs my love for sneakers with my need to create purposeful merchandise.”

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The Philosophy of Design

At a basic stage, Miller’s design philosophy includes three tenets. 

Info: Know who and the place the product is for. “I can sit at a desk all day and doodle my brains out,” she defined, “however no matter I feel the most effective resolution is means nothing if I’m not using data from professionals within the industries the place this product will spend its life.”

Within the case of Timberland PRO, this meant doing her analysis — speaking with builders, electricians, carpenters, welders, and different tradespeople to study their wants.

Miller works on a boot design at Timberland HQ; (picture/Timberland)

Perform: A product must carry out — ideally higher than related merchandise available in the market. “I like designing security merchandise as a result of I’m making sneakers for individuals who assist maintain the world operating,” she mentioned. “These will not be simple jobs. If I can create one thing that makes a kind of individuals’s jobs just a bit bit simpler, that seems like a win to me.”

Assembly this want implies that Emily is commonly centered on the skilled challenges her clients face of their trades, and discovering options to these issues. 

Style: Basically, footwear must carry out. However at a better stage, they will also be a type of self-expression. “I’m not into trend,” Miller hedged, “however I do love sneakers. … Even within the easiest of kinds, they’re a device in addition to a technique to specific what you want.” 

“At some age, everybody must put on sneakers,” she continued. “They defend us from the weather, whether or not these parts are a grassy yard, a marathon course, or a dusty development job website.”

The Challenges of Designing Work Sneakers 

Even with a rock-solid design framework, creating sturdy and reliable footwear for tradespeople is just not simple or easy. For one, making sneakers and boots for a number of the hardest put on environments will be aesthetically limiting.

However there are additionally numerous business requirements and security assessments that Timberland PRO footwear must go as a way to be bought for particular environments. Sure bedrock options, like a security toe, require particulars that may’t be compromised.

The Timberland PRO Morphix Work Boot; (picture/Timberland PRO)

“Let’s say we’re creating a brand new athletic industrial shoe for indoor manufacturing and warehousing,” Miller gave for example. “We wish to make this factor look lean, glossy, and quick so you possibly can transfer such as you would in your favourite sneaker — however with the additional advantage of security safety and enhanced long-wear consolation.” 

To create a feel and appear much like an athletic shoe — in a piece boot — takes nice ability. Syncing up the calls for of the security toe whereas offering outsole protection for sturdiness and the size for consolation isn’t any small factor. It’s these kinds of challenges that maintain Emily on her toes and creatively engaged in her work. 

Certainly one of her more moderen initiatives was creating the Timberland PRO Morphix Work Boot, an evolution of the Timberland PRO Radius Work Sneaker. 

She and her group leveled up a number of the key efficiency options of the Radius platform with a thicker foam and different design tweaks. This supplied extra consolation and fuller outsole geometry that performs higher in crossover indoor/out of doors environments versus the radius, which was designed particularly for indoor use. 

SHOP MORPHIX BOOT

Designing for Work and Play

All of it stems again to Miller’s early ardour for inventive expression. Taking a singular problem and making one thing helpful is her life’s work, and that zeal comes by way of in her up to date Timberland PRO designs.

By her personal admission, these issues are why she’s been with the model for the final 7 years — all the time having an fascinating artistic problem retains her happy and rising in her profession.

Timberland PRO’s Berkley Comp Toe integrates a composite toe for added security, from work to play; (picture/Timberland PRO)

On the coronary heart of it, she loves the problem of creating sneakers that carry out like boots, and inversely, loves making a boot that seems like a sneaker. Her aim is to create one thing that effortlessly goes from work to play, serving each capabilities equally.

“I take pleasure in persevering with to try to make merchandise our clients can put on on the job and may then meet their pals or household for dinner,” she reiterated. “All these individuals who work in these industries we service have lives outdoors of their jobs. I wish to create a product for his or her job that’s snug and trendy sufficient that they will work all day and nonetheless be snug sufficient to go reside their lives in it, as properly.”

This submit is sponsored by Timberland PRO. Study extra and store at timberland.com.