The best designers of the red dot design award 2007 in interview: Gerald Kuhtz

The panel of experts awarded Gerald Kuhtz, designer and Director of Global Creative adidas Golf, red dot: best of the best title for his innovative golf shoe “TOUR360 II”. We spoke to him about the plan behind it.

Mr Kuhtz, what inspired you to create this particular product and what was the intention behind it?

The inspiration for the design language of the TOUR360 II was kinetic and digital art. Combining those influences with traditional golf values allowed us to conceive a con-substantial design philosophy that defines its look and performance, which together has been responsible for their success.

What does being awarded with the "red dot: best of the best" mean to you?

It means three things:

1. It means that by blending technology with tradition we have created a striking design context with our products that has allowed us to realize global design meaning.

2. It means we have been recognized alongside some of the finest brands and designs in the world, which has excited and motivated all teams that were involved in the development of TOUR360 II.

3. It means another crowning achievement for adidas and for adidas Golf.

What particular challenges do you think designers have to face these days?

Two key challenges:

1. Keeping, and not losing, sight of the original ambition and goal of the project is almost always a challenge.

2. When designing the next generation of a product. It's particularly challenging when a designer is tasked to find ways to make a next-generation design significantly different without making significant changes to the preceding design.

As a designer, what would you still like to accomplish in the future?

Have a family, design a modern home and design a monster bike.

What do you think is the economic significance of design?

Huge. The product creation team for the original TOUR 360 and then the TOUR360 II, including the designers, played a leading role in determining the business goals of each product. The original became our best-selling concept by far, and its sales have made a significant financial impact on our company.

Inspired – on design and tradition

The concept of the Tour 360 II thus follows an unusual approach: its design is inspired by kinetic art, a genre that has claimed attention again and again for over a century. It had become famous through artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Julio Le Parc, as well as the artists of the Zero Group. Their art always aimed to question our established patterns of perception – challenging the beholder to look at known things in a new way. This golf shoe quotes kinetic art and interprets the borrowings in a new language of form that made it possible to consistently create unity between the numerous functional elements. The lively lines of the design start from the large toe-guard and flow over the vamp around the saddle to exit through the three-stripe branding in the heel. The saddle, an already well-proven golf shoe element, wraps itself forcefully around the foot, rich in contrast and modern in form. This kind of “con-substantial” approach, as the designers described it, allowed them to combine the golf tradition with modern and controlled shapes into a high-quality design.