The Pantone Color Book: The Shoe Designers Must Have Tool.
Your new shoe is ready to be manufactured, how do you explain the perfect shade of red you have in mind to the sample maker in China or Italy?
You could collect material swatches and cut color chips from around your office, attach these to your spec sheets, and Fed-Ex them to China. For unique materials or textures, this is a great idea. But, if you have 20 different shoes to spec with multi-color logos, this is not practical. You also need to consider what happens inside the factory. Your color swatch will have to be chopped up into a dozen pieces. One piece will go to the rubber factory, one piece to the mesh factory, one piece to the leather factory, one piece to the print shop, one piece to the shoelace factory, etc…etc… and the main shoe factory also needs to keep a piece to confirm the other factories get the color right. This is not practical for all the subcontractors.
To save time and money, professional shoe designers will use a color matching system. There are several systems, Toyo (from Japan), Ral (from Germany), and Pantone (from the USA). Don’t waste your time with anything else – PANTONE is it, period.
Pantone Colors for Shoes
A Pantone color specification book is required for every shoe designer and developer. You will need to have a Pantone book to communicate with the shoe factory and your customers exactly what color you want. The Pantone corporation color books are the industry standard for color matching. You will find that every shoe factory has a Pantone book and it’s easy for you to reference a color.
How to use the Pantone System:
There are many Pantone books and chip sets. The basic color fans on paper cost about $150.00. The two fan set includes coated (glossy) and uncoated (matte) finishes. The coated book is great for plastic, mesh, molded rubber, and PU leather. The uncoated book is best for cut EVA, synthetic nu-buck, canvas, or any other matte finish item.
It’s so simple! Just add the color number to your specification sheet.
This is nice bright orange, # 021 C.
“021” is the color name.
“C” means it’s from the coated book.
There are several other books. The “U” (uncoated book) and the “TP” (textile color book), etc. It’s not a bad idea to also note the page number.
Types of Pantone Books:
The colors are also available in a tear out chip book.
The Pantone company makes the same color books in cotton, nylon, and plastic chips sets. If you work for a big office, go for it! You will see that these are very expensive books. Pantone also makes an electronic color sensing system and many other color specifying products.
A final note on Pantone Books: When you get to the factory, have a look at their Pantone books. I was having trouble getting colors matched correctly at one factory. During a factory visit, I found the printing department was using the oldest, dirtiest, worn out Pantone book. AH HA!
The manager was very angry when I took his book and threw it into the trash, but he was very happy when I gave him a fresh new one.
Without the Pantone book, it is almost impossible to match colors correctly with your overseas factories. The books are expensive but your entire office can easily share one. This is a must-have shoe designers tool. You can order Pantone books from Amazon.com
I would start with Pantone Set GP1501, then GG1504 if you need pastels and neon colors.
FGP200 has a deeper selection of earth tones if you are leaning that direction.
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Specification Drawing
Italian High Quality Shoes
The typical shoe factory in China will have hundreds, even thousands of workers, but there is a new class of small factories now producing the highest quality custom and semi-custom shoes. On a recent visit to China, I toured the show room of the custom shoe maker Top Owen. Owen, the founder of the brand, learned his trade in mass production of athletic footwear, but then changed course.
With a desire to create european craftsmanship in China, Owen left his job at a huge shoe factory to build his own micro factory. Owen hired on a staff of 25 expert shoe makers to operate his new custom shoe factory. After careful study of the highest quality European hand crafted shoes, Owen and his team now offer custom hand crafted footwear for shoe connoisseurs lucky enough to find him.
Are you looking for some custom made kicks? Owen has a section of mock vulc stitch down soles, classic trainer wedge, and classic basketball sole units available. For around $400 USD you can get your own pattern custom made in full grain leather. For an extra $125 USD you can have a test pattern sent to you for fitting.
Send Owen a design for dress shoes and his team will create exactly what you want. You pick the design, last shape, leathers and any extra styling work you desire. Prices start around $400 USD – depending on your material and design requirements. For an extra $125 USD you can have a test pattern sent to you for fitting.
Are you looking for a full custom fit? For a 100% hand made last fit just for you? The full custom program brings the high end European custom made service to you at a fraction of the European price. Send Owen and his team photographs of your foot and record the critical measurements. Then, send Owen your design for the dress shoes and his team will create them to your specifications. Once again, you pick the design, last shape, leathers and any extra styling work you desire.
In the major shoe making centers in China you will find thriving local markets for shoe materials. The local markets are store fronts large and small with every type of shoe material, shoe component and manufacturing equipment available. You will find many store fronts displaying the material swatches available to order from a nearby factory or you will find shoe materials in stock that you can purchase immediately for use making samples. These market areas are very well organized, you will find streets lined with shoe material suppliers and even shopping malls crammed with all types of shoe materials.
The material market in Houjie is a great place to find shoe leather. There are many different suppliers with all different types of leather. You will find leather in every color of the rainbow, from thick to thin, and in many different finishes. You can buy leather by the hide or a dozen hides at once. Of course, if you have a production order they can help you with that too.
bottoms and running shoe bottoms. In the local market you will find “copy” bottoms of the latest shoe designs (without logos). You cannot buy a single outsole 1 but you can order small runs of 5 to 10 units to make samples, then of course more for production. The only issue with the local market outsole is the last bottom is already set. This may or may not work for your market. You can buy the last with the outsoles or you can have a local last maker help you model the last to fit the outsoles.
Lucky for us there is no “normal” day for a shoe designer! The daily life of a shoe designer may be different every day! For a footwear designer every day will present a new challenge, almost every day will be a new adventure! I can think of 10 different “days in the life of a shoe designer” that you can expect as a professional shoe designer.
Most likely you will be in a foreign county (China? Italy?), staying in a hotel close to your office or the factory. Expect to get started early the morning. If you are traveling with co-workers it’s very important to get everyone organized and on the same schedule. The traffic in the industrial areas of China can be horrific, it’s critical to get started early or your factory visiting day will be spent in traffic!
Board Lasted Construction: A very common shoe construction technique that can be made by machine or by hand. The upper is pulled tight and bonded to a fiber board. The outsole unit is firmly cemented to the upper, securing the upper to the sole. Board lasting construction can be used on almost any style of shoe, being suitable for many upper material types and outsole styles.
Blake Construction: Used to make flexible leather shoes, the Blake construction starts with a board-lasted upper. Glue the sole in place then with the last removed, sew the upper directly through the outsole unit. The outsole may be leather or rubber and have a groove molded into its surface to guide the Blake stitch. You will find Blake construction on weltless leather dress shoes, moccasins, and boat shoes. Blake construction is not waterproof.
Goodyear Welt Construction: The Goodyear welt is often used to make waterproof soles, the stitch that attaches the sole to the shoe runs around the outside edge and does not make stitch holes in the upper. The upper is sewn to the welts that attach to the insole and the outsole. During assembly, the welts are attached first by a horizontal “Goodyear” stitch, named for the inventor of the stitching machine, Charles Goodyear Jr. (also the son of the famous rubber inventor, Charles Goodyear Sr.). The Goodyear welt construction method is ideal for heavy-duty boots for hiking or service.
Norwegian Storm Welt Construction: Similar to the Goodyear welt construction method but the upper is turned outside and is sandwiched between the outer welt and the outsole. Used to make the heaviest waterproof boots, the Norwegian Storm Welt is difficult to make and is found almost exclusively in the workshops of Italian bootmakers.
Stitch down Veldtschoen welt Construction: Again, the Veldtschoen welt is related to the Goodyear and Norwegian welt constructions. In this case, an inner welt or rapid stitch line sewn through the midsole is paired with a second rapid stitch that attaches the outsole. The outsole is attached after the first welt, the bottom stitch is protected by the outsole.
