Nike Unveil Flyprint With 3D Print Uppers for London Marathon

Nike continues to reassess and revolutionise its running footwear, and following the incredible success of the Vaporfly Elite comes their first 3D-printed upper in Flyprint. The Vaporfly 4% changed the game by improving a runner’s performance by a significant margin and has become ever-present amongst elite marathon runners, gracing podiums worldwide. Featuring ZoomX foam, carbon fibre plate and an instantly recognisable silhouette, the Vaporfly Elite has become dominant. But in pursuit of ever-better performances and to attain a competitive sub-two-hour marathon time, Nike’s development team partnered with Eliud Kipchoge to develop the new Nike Vaporfly Elite Flyprint shoe in time for the London Marathon.

We went to hear Nike Running Footwear’s Bret Schoolmeester and innovation expert Roger Cheng to better understand Flyprint, how it came into being, and what this means for the running world. As you are all aware, Nike has a litany of the world’s elite athletes as partners, inviting them to their labs to train and study them to keep producing better gear. Following on from their Breaking2 project and, more recently, the Berlin marathon in September 2017, Eliud returned to Nike with a few thoughts of his own on the Vaporfly 4%, which sparked the development of Flyprint. These types of thoughts, in general, are what spark most development at Nike. Roger said that Nike don’t innovate for innovation’s sake, and Bret furthered this by saying it’s the athletes that come to them posing problems that give the design and innovation teams the scope and target to focus upon.

For Flyprint, the problems presented were threefold. The Flyknit uppers could be lighter, they should be waterproof, and they should allow for breathability. Cutting weight is always important in a running shoe, so naturally, that’s an easy target. The weather for the Berlin marathon was pretty wet, and the rain soaked through the Flyknit in the Vaporfly 4%, so addressing this became important. Similarly, when running your feet sweat and making the upper breathable allows for this to wick away and evaporate, improving performance. So, with these three problems in mind, and using a computational design approach, Eliud, Roger, Bret and their relatively small team of about five set about their tasks. 

The outcome is a TPU, 3D-printed upper. It is waterproof, incredibly light and spun like a web. For us, one of the most interesting concepts is how Nike’s small team used Eliud’s feedback, running data and the 3D printing tech to be able to turn around prototype pairs of shoes in only a few days. In fact, it only takes about 30 minutes to get the 3D uppers printed entirely. Of course, the problem of matching the tech to the solution became key, and the pattern of the Flyprint became a significant focus, to provide Eliud with the proper support in parts of the shoe as well as the flexibility to move with his foot as he runs. A beautiful, wavy, and Bladerunner-esque pattern emerges at the end of the print, and holding it in hand is to realise how light it is, yet tugging it reveals how strong and flexible it can be.

The pattern itself was one of the computation design’s most crucial outputs. Having seen a number of prototypes, it is clear that this was an area of significant development throughout the design phases. Roger pointed out that in initial designs, more typical geometric patterns were used, which were then tweaked following Eliud’s feedback to include a more intricate set of wave designs and a diamond pattern. The diamonds and their compactness allow greater locking in and tightness in certain areas, whilst the waves allow for a greater range of motion while still providing the dimensional support needed around the foot. The design team’s algorithms around this will enable them to scale these up and down depending on the athlete, so there is no need to hit the drawing board; just a few tweaks in the software, and they’re off being printed.

Although limited to only a few pairs to buy and available to Nike’s elite athletes, we think there is great scope for Nike to continually roll this out and forward to help even your average runner get their hands on a custom-printed pair in the future — and Nike’s purchase of Invertex looks to be leaning into this too.

Eliud said to the team at Nike that 100% of him is not 1% of the team, and although Eliud may be set to take the top spot at the London Marathon, the Nike team will be patting each other on the back.