Running today is heavily driven by data, pace, steps. Do you think design can bring emotion back into the experience of running?
Yeah, 100%. I think there is some… I think it’s always important that, as you mentioned, data drives functionality, but it will cover the needs of runners, right? It will cover how she fits, how it should feels, how it should transitions, what the energy return is. And by the same time, for a run out, there has desires, right, has wants, right? It has the emotional side, that needs to be covered. That’s the face, how things look, right? Are they pleasing? Are they capturing what they want, and knowing where running is going as a sport, and as well, where the field is going, the self-expressive nature of runners is more important, right? Because running is not just anymore. People run alone in the dark. You run in groups, more people sign up to marathon races, which is great, but as well, more people run to be fit, all be together, right? You have connection points where you find new friends in your running community, or in run clubs. And this is great, right? So this opens a whole new chapter of possibilities where the look and feel of how products are, or as well how things are that people want to dress and become way more important and become way more top of mind.
Sí, al cien por ciento. Creo que hay algo… como mencionas, los datos impulsan la funcionalidad, pero al final cubren las necesidades de quien corre, ¿no? Definen cómo se ajusta, cómo se siente, cómo hace la transición, cuál es el retorno de energía.
Y al mismo tiempo, salir a correr también implica deseos, implica querer algo más. Está el lado emocional, que también necesita ser atendido. Esa es la “cara”: cómo se ven las cosas. ¿Resultan atractivas? ¿Logran capturar lo que la gente busca?
Si pensamos hacia dónde va el running como deporte, y también hacia dónde va su entorno, la dimensión de autoexpresión es cada vez más importante. Porque correr ya no es solo eso. Ya no es únicamente gente corriendo sola en la oscuridad. Ahora corres en grupo, más personas se inscriben a maratones —lo cual es increíble—, pero también más gente corre para sentirse bien, para estar juntos.
Se generan puntos de conexión donde encuentras amistades dentro de tu comunidad de corredores o en los run clubs. Y eso es muy valioso. Abre un nuevo capítulo de posibilidades donde la apariencia y la sensación de los productos, así como la forma en que la gente quiere vestirse y proyectarse, se vuelven mucho más relevantes, mucho más presentes.
When you designed the Hyperboost Edge, did you think of the body more as a machine, or as a sensible experience?
Cuando diseñaste el Hyperboost Edge, ¿pensaste en el cuerpo más como una máquina o como una experiencia sensible?
I like your thinking a lot. Um… In what I would see, I believe, you can never go the one or either way. And it’s important it is for a great, healthy, and compelling, satisfying run to hit all the metrics home that are driven by functionality. Does the shoe transition right, in this case, on high produced edge, and we wanted to achieve responsiveness, energy return, we wanted to create cushion, and we connect to create lightweight, to generate this new dimension of a supertrainer that wasn’t there before. So this is functionally super important. But at the same time, the dimension into desireful, emotional elements, the human side is very important. So, while on the one side, you have superhuman, which is functionality, the superhumane side, on the more emotional side is super important. And therefore, the understanding what do I wear, the emotion drivers having something. that is very progressive, that is very modern, where people feel great with, is a super important dimension, which we can never isolate from each other, because then we create a product that is either weak on the other side or on the other. So I think they need to come together in the right balance. And it’s really the concept in the right space. And in our case, the functionality here that we have that define the shoe, but as well, the look and feel around the shoe is what makes it then desirable, makes it tangible, and makes it human to be run
Me gusta mucho cómo lo planteas. En mi forma de verlo, nunca puedes irte solo hacia un lado o el otro. Para que una corrida sea realmente buena, saludable y satisfactoria, es clave cumplir con todos los parámetros que dicta la funcionalidad. En este caso, ¿el calzado hace bien la transición? Con el Hyperboost Edge buscábamos lograr respuesta, retorno de energía, amortiguación, y al mismo tiempo mantenerlo ligero, para crear esta nueva dimensión de un supertrainer que antes no existía. Esa parte funcional es fundamental.
Pero al mismo tiempo, la dimensión del deseo, de lo emocional, del lado humano, es igual de importante. Por un lado está lo “superhumano”, que sería la funcionalidad; por el otro, lo “superhumano” en un sentido más sensible, más emocional.
Entender qué llevo puesto, los impulsos emocionales, tener algo que se sienta progresivo, contemporáneo, con lo que la gente se identifique y se sienta bien, es una dimensión clave. No podemos separar una cosa de la otra, porque entonces el producto se debilita en alguno de los dos frentes.
Creo que ambas tienen que encontrarse en el equilibrio correcto, en el punto preciso. En nuestro caso, la funcionalidad define el calzado, pero su apariencia y su sensación son lo que lo vuelven deseable, tangible, y, en última instancia, humano al momento de correr.
When someone finishes around wearing a shoe, you design, what do you hope they feel?
Cuando alguien termina de correr usando un calzado que diseñaste, ¿qué esperas que sienta?
Joy? Joy after a long, hard run. and satisfaction to having being done something where they probably would have not thought they can break. and happiness because they became a healthier person with one run more. And this is what we want to inspire, as well, with the specific product in special where we want to attract to more runners to run, right ? That is an easy entry that gives you so much energy back, that gives you that feeling that gives you that joy in the end. I think you are easier to pick up the next time they run again, right? After this. So, I think with this hope, making overall more people happier, healthier runners. is the end goal, and the sensation of the world is choice, fulfilling, is feeling great for the next day.
¿Alegría? Alegría después de una corrida larga y exigente. Y satisfacción por haber logrado algo que quizá no creían posible. Felicidad por haberse vuelto una persona más saludable con una corrida más.
Eso es lo que buscamos inspirar, especialmente con este producto: invitar a más personas a correr. Que sea una entrada accesible, que te devuelva energía, que te deje esa sensación, esa alegría al final. Creo que así se vuelve más fácil querer salir de nuevo la próxima vez.
Al final, la intención es esa: que más personas sean más felices y más saludables corriendo. Y que la sensación que quede sea de plenitud, de haber elegido bien, de sentirse bien incluso al día siguiente.
Have you ever allowed something slightly unpredictable to remain in a design because it created character?
¿Alguna vez has permitido que algo ligeramente impredecible permanezca en un diseño porque le daba carácter?
In some sense, it’s the essence of everything. Because when designing something for tomorrow, there is always areas for a human to have it, that needs to be familiarity, that you feel good with it, so it somehow needs to fall into its issue, and then there’s some areas where it needs modernity newness, that it’s interesting enough to buy into it, because you don’t have had it already. So in our case, here, for example, yes, it identifies as a running shoe from far. It identifies even as clothes, but there are some areas that break the boundaries. Like, for us, for example, putting branding here, an element that is by structure, like this creates, and evokes a different emotion, like covering the laces with this or having. I think there’s areas that help us to push outside of the generic that are great. And sometimes in the process, they come by the exploration. I think a design process is never linear, and you can never, at the first day, say what it is, but very often, we find these things that are, are they progressive? Are they surprising? Are they disruptive? Sometimes they maybe do disruptive for now. And we might use them for, rather, tomorrow, but they always good tease us how we can question is what we’re creating, progressive enough. Is it interesting enough, and does it give, in the end, the runner something that they will like and feel good about?
En cierto sentido, es la esencia de todo. Porque al diseñar algo para el mañana, siempre hay espacios donde lo humano debe estar presente: esa familiaridad que te hace sentir bien, que hace que el objeto se reconozca y tenga sentido. Pero también hay zonas donde debe existir la novedad, la modernidad, algo lo suficientemente interesante como para querer adoptarlo, precisamente porque no lo has tenido antes.
En nuestro caso, por ejemplo, sí: desde lejos se identifica como un calzado de running, incluso como parte de un lenguaje más amplio. Pero hay elementos que rompen los límites. Para nosotros, por ejemplo, ubicar el branding en cierto punto, o integrar un elemento estructural de una forma distinta, genera otra emoción. Cubrir las agujetas o intervenir ciertas zonas son decisiones que nos permiten salir de lo genérico.
Y muchas veces, estas cosas surgen desde la exploración. El proceso de diseño nunca es lineal; no puedes definir todo desde el primer día. Con frecuencia aparecen estos hallazgos: ¿son progresivos? ¿sorprendentes? ¿disruptivos? A veces incluso demasiado disruptivos para el presente, y se reservan para el futuro.
Pero siempre funcionan como una provocación, como una forma de cuestionar lo que estamos creando: ¿es lo suficientemente avanzado?, ¿es lo suficientemente interesante?, y, al final, ¿le da al corredor algo con lo que conecte, algo que le haga sentir bien?
If you could share a piece of advice for someone that wants to start running, but doesn’t know how to connect with their inner energy, what would it be?
I think the best advice I would give to run is… Don’t limit yourself, don’t hold back. Go in. enjoy it, go all in, see how you go, how it feels naturally. But give it the chance, and never try to be perfect in the 1st moment, so we’d be always in beta version, right? Always try to then improve, but go in and don’t be afraid of not being perfect in the 1st moment. I think that’s always the best, that’s as well very often how we would design, right? We never know the solution. First place, you’ll find it over time. It’s the same with sport, right? Like, you try, you do your best at the moment, and you learn how to, and you do it better. And it’s the same for starting running, right? If you never go out, if you never lace up. Just go with it, and then the next run will be better. The next one will be better. And there will be terrible runs in between. There will be the ones that suck where you feel, oh, terrible today. But then get up and do it again, and I think then over time, trusting in the process, it will become better. And I think if you have a companion like the Hyperboost on the side, for sure. You have something that makes it easier. That makes it more joyful. But I think these are the things that you need to have, and for sure you need to have, probably the surrounding as well, that can help you support you, and it’s a beautiful sport, so I would always everybody advise to keep going.