Footwear Pattern Making and Last Design: A beginners guide to the fundamental techniques of shoemaking. (How Shoes are Made)

There is not a lot out there written by an actual world class nuts and bolts shoe/sneaker maker. This is one of them. It is a practical step by step guide on exactly what to do. A large number of photos, measurements, terminology explained, etc....This is Motawi's 4th or 5th book on how to make shoes. He is not writing theoretically. He designs, builds and supervises production of his foot products, including walking the floors of factories in China several times a year. All his books are excellent and cover different angles on the process.

The tables of the various shoe sizes, British, American, French, Chinese, Japanese, and Mondopoint are extremely useful in converting from one system to another. Illustrations are clear and to the point. Only complaint is he dives right into making a 'pretty' shoe and I would have preferred a much simpler design as my first attempt at making shoes.

Easy to understand, step-by-step patternmaking. Great chapter on lasts and size grading. I highly recommend this book.

Highly recommend. Updated information of this sort has been hard to find and this book is well done and easy to follow. The photos are great and really helped me to understand the patternmaking and last design processes.

Great resource. Valuable find. I will recommend this to product design students at my university.

Great

I have worked in this industry for more than 40 years and find this book and the others by Wade Motawi to be extremely useful and helpful to both me and my clients who are starting their own footwear brands. There have not been any books on modern footwear last design in almost 20 years! I would recommend you add this book and the How Shoes Are Made series to your design and reference library.