The Odd Sock
The Sanlam Investments FoodWineDesign Fair is all about promoting creative talent in South Africa. But this time, it’s your talent we’re after. Together with House and Leisure magazine we’re launching an exciting new project that’ll allow you to design the socks you’d want to wear.
Cape Town-based company, the Feat Sock Co, are in the business of creating bold, graphic socks that make a serious fashion statement. As soon as we laid eyes on their product we knew we wanted to team up with this creative duo. So we decided to ask three top South African illustrators to create beautiful socks that Feat Sock Co will produce as limited-edition runs especially for the FoodWineDesign Fair, from 8-10 November.
But what does this have to do with you, you may ask? Well, as part of this project, we’re running a competition that calls for original sock designs from the public – yes, you. Over the month of August we’ll be accepting submissions and on 2 September we’ll choose the top entry. Feat Sock Co will produce this winning design as a limited-edition sock, which we’ll launch at the Fair along with those of the top SA illustrators. Your name will be included on the packaging, together with a blurb about you and your inspiration. You’ll also win a R1 500 Africandy voucher and a complete set of the limited-edition socks.
Keen to enter? Here’s how:
1. Download the sock template, here.
2. Create an awesome sock design using the following colours:
Cotton and bamboo colours (use these as your main colours):
Nylon colours (use these for detail):
3. Email your entry to [email protected] by Friday 30 August 2013.
While we want you to go completely wild with your designs, The Feat Sock Co offers the following guidelines for what makes a good sock:
- The patterns on the sock need to be quite bold and graphic, as too much detail becomes intense for the machine to handle. This is because the needle changes over quickly for each colour. Take a look at their website and you’ll see that their styles are simple, graphic and bold (for instance, if you saw someone walking on the other side of the street you would still think “hey cool socks!” – you wouldn’t need to bend down to look too closely).
- A design that works around the sock works particularly well (for instance a stripe/zig-zag) as this way the knitting machine does not need to change needles as frequently. No need to feel too restricted by this – repetitive dots/other geometric shapes also work well!
- Using the above colour charts, remember to use more bamboo or cotton and keep nylon for the details. Obviously, comfy socks are natural socks, so the more cotton or bamboo the better.
Ready to get started? Good luck and we can’t wait to see your design! Remember to send it to [email protected] before 30 August 2013.
And for those of you in Joburg, be sure to pop around to the Sanlam Investments FoodWineDesign Fair from 8-10 November to see (and pick up) a pair of the winning designs. See you there!