Designing ASICS's comeback story through a new product line
A case study in elevating a sports brand through designing a narrative-driven recovery system for elite athletes.
Project & Brief
A project conducted during exchange studies in ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, United States. Created in the context of a product designed course centered around using storytelling to highlight unique qualities of sports brands.
*this product is not an actual product of ASICS*
Designed a narrative-driven transformation for ASICS catered towards elite athletes. By distilling the brand's ethos into a 6-word story, we conceptualized a self-calibrating recovery gear system for Australian soccer star Ellie Carpenter. The solution transforms athelete's vulnerability into strength, enabling them to recover dynamically while staying connected to their sport. The brand story is fragmented. A unifying narrative must emerge from a clear, focused problem space that ties product, purpose, and identity together.
The ASICS brand
ASICS is a brand rich in heritage, and formerly a top dog in the footwear category.
It is centered around uplifting morale through sports and fostering a ‘sound mind in a sound body’ (the direct translation of their slogan)
Yet it has lost its popularity, and is now seen as more of a reliable brand or a dad shoe, lacking the aspirational edge associated with high-performance sport.
“Transform ASICS from dependable to desirable & craft a brand that fuels aspiration as much as performance.”
With ASICS's long history of innovation, the narrative and product need to stay authentic to the brand.
Outcomes & Impact
Outcome
A pair of products: shoes and pants, centred around the concept of reactive recovery: products that can react to the body's specific needs.
New segment
Helped ASICS enter the professional sports segment by focusing on recovery during daily downtimes.
Opening future possibilities
Reframed ASICS' innovation as a tool for resilience, opening new avenues for culturally resonant storytelling.
Act 1
Discovery
Storytelling as a way to approach the design process
- The Design Process in this project was guided not by the classic double-diamond or similar, but rather by a long narrative throughline that allowed us to diverge and converge in our design work.
- Narrative-guided meant distilling the brand down to a short story, something in literature called flash fiction.
- Flash Fiction is a brief fictional narrative that still offers character and plot development. This is a very effective way of capturing the audiences attention quickly and directly, especially in an age of short attention spans. The Brand-Athlete-Sport trio has to be expertly chosen and almost self-evident, and drives the entire narrative and product design.
- The narrative design process involves essentially a funnel of rapid decisions and problem formations.
Ideation boards
And thus, a short / flash / story is born:
Act 2
Directions to Product
What-if questions
- The storytelling process continues through analyzing our 6 word story with What if questions.
- We relate these directly relate to the words and images.
- So what if vulnerability could unveil potential - just like how Ellie, our athlete, overcame her injury (her vulnerability) through a focus on recovery and balance.
How the How Could We question relates to our story
Athlete user journey & ACL injuries
- Through analyzing Ellie's yearly, weekly and daily season schedule, I was able to pinpoint to the fact that soccer athletes are simply not getting enough recovery.
- I reimagined the daily season schedule, placing the focus on maximized recovery outside of training/game time.
Act 3
Big Picture Thinking
Technical understanding
- Searching WGSN (one of the biggest trend forecasting services in the world), MIT Technology Review (bimonthly tech-forecasting magazine from MIT) & academic articles, we found a plethora of technologies related to our What if and How could we questions.
- Below is our collection of research, which we further dissected, related to four keywords. Included are also the mindmaps for each keyword.
- Vulnerability (purple)
- Progress & Excellence (yellow)
- Potential (orange)
- Unveiling (blue)
Biomechanics research
- Studied why women have up to 9x more ACL injuries than men.
- Out of the three possible ways to combat ACL injuries, chose to focus on the two that were related to muscle recovery, which is how the two final products came about.
- Recovery pants: to improve blood flow to the hamstrings and massage the legs
- Recovery shoes: to improve blood flow in the arch of the foot and thus prevent injuries from unsafe landings
Color & Form
- In the storytelling process, everything ties back together. We see this even with the color, as the 6 words and images story informs and inspires the color palette.
- The trend and biomechanics research then inspires our first form and tech sketches.
- Outside of that, we looked into Color trends from WGSN & form inspiration from Japanese samurai wear.
Colors from 6 Word Story
Act 4
Executing
Core insights from research
- Towards the end of our research phase, made the following decisions moving forward:
- Technical Research — Using heat-reactive compression fabrics, could target specific areas of focus.
- Biomechanics Research — Focus on reactive recovery, or how gear could react to the body's needs (as opposed to focus on training or in-game gear)
- Form & Color — Colorway inspired by the 6 word story, form inspired by samurai & athletic taping
- Then started working on the final products. I worked on the footwear, and Rosela worked on the garment. We kept working closely together, ensuring that both our products were sending the same message.
Initial concept sketches
Physical prototyping
Printed Pattern on Fabric
Outcomes showcase
- The outcome is a pair of products centered around the concept of reactive recovery - wearable products that can react to the body's specific needs in real-time.
- 1. Recovery Footwear — A self-optimizing footwear that can autonomously massage the arch and stimulate the feet in real-time based on the athlete's gait, muscle fatigue, and injury history. Designed to reduce strain on vulnerable joints by redistributing pressure and forming a better mind connection between the foot and the athlete.
- 2. Recovery Modular Pants — Adaptive compression leggings with embedded biometric sensors that detect muscle fatigue then apply targeted pressure/heat to stimulate the muscle and make it easier to relax. Calibrates to the athlete's unique physiology, mirroring the body's natural recovery rhythms.
Final Presentation Wall
