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The development table: a 3D-printed full shoe prototype, a lattice midsole print, a translucent resin midsole, a row of printed tread tiles, and a NOBULL reference shoe cut in half.

Footwear Design

Trail Runner Concepts for NOBULL

Trail running shoe concepts developed during my color, material, and finish internship: hand sketches, a spec sheet, colorway explorations, 3D-printed midsole and upper prototypes, and a feature-callout film.

Category
Footwear Design
Year
2026
Duration
Summer 2026
Role
Color, material, and finish design intern, footwear
For
NOBULL, Boston
Tools
Procreate, Photoshop, Vizcom, Rhino, 3D printing
Materials
Ripstop upper, Supercritical EVA midsole, Rubber lugs, Gusseted tongue

The brief

NOBULL brought me on for the summer as a Color, Materials and Finish intern on the footwear team. Alongside the seasonal color and materials research, I designed a set of trail running concepts and carried one of them from a lateral sketch through a spec sheet, colorways, and printed prototypes.

The goal was a shoe that reads as NOBULL on a gravel road: a durable ripstop upper, a sculpted midsole with a raised sidewall, a gusseted tongue, and deep rubber lugs.

Presenting the project: a hand-drawn lateral sketch with a handwritten specification table for materials, outsole, midsole, construction, sockliner and cost, next to the colorway grid.

Colorways

Colorway explorations built in Photoshop, Procreate and Vizcom, with shoe samples on the table for reference.

Prototyping

I modeled the upper shell and midsole and printed them at the shop: a full white prototype to check proportion and fit, a lattice midsole, a translucent resin midsole to see the geometry, and a row of small tread tiles to compare lug shapes. A worn NOBULL runner sawn in half sat on the table as the construction reference.

The upper shell on the build plate before printing.

Renders

Renders and the short films were made with Vizcom and generative video tools, which is part of how the footwear team visualizes early concepts. The prototypes above are real.

Grey ripstop upper on a sculpted, upturned midsole with a black outsole.AI-assisted render
The olive and black colorway with a neon toggle lace, visualized on gravel.AI-assisted render

Feature callouts

Fourteen-second loop calling out the gusseted tongue, sculpted heel counter, reinforced toe and forefoot, supercritical EVA midsole, raised midsole sidewall and rubber lugs. Concept visualization, no sound.

Concept film

Forty-second concept film for the trail runner. Sound on. Generated visuals from the concept renders.
Turntable study of the olive, black and gum colorway. Concept visualization.