On
The running shoes of the young Swiss company On are based on a completely novel idea – with a soft landing and hard push-off. On’s patented technology com bines comfort with performance. The product unites the advan tages of a soft training shoe with those of a tough competition shoe. This is achieved by means of hollow elements in the sole, which respond to ground impact by expanding towards the heel to guarantee a soft landing, at the same time closing and meshing together internally to reconstitute a hard support. In this way the shoe enables the foot to push off powerfully from the ground. The design of the running shoes serves to make this fundamentally simple technical idea intuitively accessible and visible to the eye. The upper shoe, on the other hand, is formally restrained, being limited to an intelligent support of the shoe’s functionality.
Comments of the nominators
This is a running shoe that does not just adopt the industrial standards of the big established manufacturers, but represents a completely free approach start ing from scratch. The innova tion has already met with a posi tive response from many top athletes, and has been consistently realised in the product as well as in in the development of the brand.
Comments of the jury
The market for running shoes is overcrowded and hotly con tested – so when a new brand comes along and takes the market by storm, the innovation behind it must convey a promise which it manages to keep – a shoe with qualities never heard of before. In this case a clever design idea has proved capable of competing against the million-strong budgets which the big brands in the industry assign to research and marketing. The straight-forward design of the shoe deliberately refrains from in dulgence in stylistic frills, and is wholly consistent in focusing on the basic functional requirements. The attention is drawn to the sole, which here constitutes the crucially important element.
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