The 12-Month Transformation of a 3D Printed Product's Design

In 2020 when Brett Casson launched Retraction Footwear, his business that produces custom flip-flops 3D printed on demand, he had a product design that worked. The company’s original shoe could be 3D printed in just two pieces (strap plus sole, a consolidation that also contributes to the shoes’ sustainability), and the digital design allowed for scaling and adjusting the shoes to fit a customer’s unique feet along with producing them in custom color combinations. These facts alone allowed Retraction to offer many more options and variables to customers than most of us are used to in a shoe purchase.

But that original flip-flop design wasn’t perfect, and as orders began to grow, Casson started collecting customer feedback — and acting on it. The nimbleness possible through additive manufacturing (AM) has allowed Casson to modify the design of these shoes quickly and affordably, in response to real-time feedback. When the entire manufacturing process is digital, the file becomes the tooling — and the tooling can be easily changed.

In a span of just one year since launch, Retraction Footwear has gone through four major iterations of its product (and many more if you count all the small changes made along the way). The latest version of the shoe looks quite different, with a footbed that is nearly twice as thick as the original (but with an infill pattern that means it doesn’t use twice as much material, Casson notes); a smooth insole that is now printed separately and can be customized with text; and a padded strap that is cushioned with air pockets trapped during the 3D printing process. 

“If you were doing this through traditional manufacturing, there’s no way you’d be able to evolve that quickly,” Casson says. “Or at least, not without a huge budget.” 

Conventional shoe manufacturers of course change and evolve the designs of their footwear, but this comes with a large investment in tooling and lead time; a new generation of a shoe only appears every so often. But with 3D printing, customer input can lead much more quickly to new iterations of the product. Or even, “Let me fix that for you and send you a new pair,” Casson says. 

He expects the design will continue to evolve and change in the future, but Retraction is also working to help customers order the best possible fit from the beginning. Where previously buyers ordered based on their shoe size, Retraction Footwear is now partnering with Xesto, a footwear fitting app for Apple devices that can capture precise measurement of a person’s foot. Though intended to help users select the right size in conventional shoe shopping, the app’s capabilities are a natural complement to 3D printed footwear where the measurements themselves can become the appropriate custom shoe dimensions. While currently customers who choose this option enter their measurements manually while ordering (and shoes can still be purchased in standard sizes), Casson is working toward integrating the app into the website itself, allowing an even more seamless shopping experience for custom-made footwear.