Client Brief

Surefoot’s design problem turns on an issue of legibility: They sell a custom fitting process that is unique to the industry, but the store is stocked with rows of intensively patterned and colored boots from immediately recognizable global brands. How can an intangible process supersede or visually insinuate itself into the slick glamour of an industrial design object? The diffusion of the custom-fitting process compounds this design problem; it occurs in a series of small episodes that are not immediately legible as having anything to do with skiing or footwear. In order to fit a boot, Surefoot uses a digital scanner to create a topographic map of the customer’s foot. This map is sent to a computer-controlled mill that fabricates an orthotic insert. The process is completed by injecting rapid-hardening foam into the liner of a boot while the customer stands on a canted platform designed to simulate the position and resultant stresses of the foot and ankle against the ski boot while skiing. Uninitiated customers need a spatial system to guide them through the custom fitting process. This process is unavoidably scattered through the store but also part of a coherent whole and a recognizable brand.

Local Response

As part of an urban sub-class of Off-Piste flagship stores in the Surefoot family, Surefoot London is located in Fulham in the heart of Chelsea. The store affords the affluent local clientele the opportunity to purchase and service their Surefoot ski boots in advance of a ski vacation in the European Alps or the US. Surefoot London was considered as a means for generating interest in the company product by hooking the passer by (whether by car or on foot) with a seductive wallpaper of product, forcing an engagement with the Process of fitting ski boots. The concept uses a technique of encasing display in a blank wrapper which is forced to the periphery of the space, interlacing with large-format graphics with reinforce the company’s mission. Display acts as a stage set for the mechanics of the fitting process at the center of the space, marked with a “Surefoot Red” staircase that functions as a kind of graphic asterisk.