In May 2021, Stephanie cofounded Endstate, the lifestyle brand that combines the physical with the digital to unlock connections to what you’re passionate about.

Endstate partners with world class athletes, artists, and brands to create premium signature sneakers that unlock unprecedented fan engagement.

With over 20 years of experience including Director roles at Nike and Seventh Generation, we work with clients to translate cultural shifts into actionable insights, discover end user aspirations, and manifest those into products and strategies.  We have experience leading diverse teams in the Creative Problem Solving process to drive meaningful solutions through guided workshops ...Always starting with WHY to define HOW...

We team with brands to build concepts, strategies, and stories around emerging insights. These images are a small sampling from work that combined athlete insights with potential material innovations. The full client deliverable was a presentation case outlining the consumer insight, the innovation concepts, and how they can manifest in multiple product categories.

Front End work involves a combination of research, discovery, and visioning future concepts.  Game-changing product, like this paper bottle, start with seeds planted early.  As Innovation Director at Seventh Generation, my team introduced the concept and began initial development of this product.  Final design and development credit goes to Ecologic Brands.

Product Design is the visual storytelling of the performance technology. It is the HOW, and it is never arbitrary.  Every element is considered, and every detail refined.  

Designing this site for Women in Sports Tech was a true pleasure - A team effort with outstanding partners. Expert content planning was provided by Glenna Patton, Marilou McFarlane, and Gretchen Reeves. The creative direction and design was inspired by the amazing work this organization does. Check out the website and please join the movement to #ChangeTheRatio - https://www.womeninsportstech.org

Winner of an International Design Excellence Award (2019)

Innovation Platform Creation for Timberland

This project was created in collaboration with the VF Global Innovation footwear team.

Project Better is a casual footwear collection with an innovation platform that focuses on Wellbeing. The design principles are rooted in consumer insights from our research and ethnography studies in Amsterdam, an urban epicenter of wellness lifestyle. “Better” means putting the human first, developing shoes from a new perspective, reducing materials, and amplifying the benefits of natural ones.  The design aesthetic is honest and transparent in make.  The shoes are authentically crafted; a visual “Hygge” (a Dutch word describing the sensation of coziness and wellbeing).  The function is Dynamic - comfort in motion.  The shoes are made of only the essential elements, deconstructed without extraneous layers, to enhance the natural movement of the foot. The foot and heel are surrounded by the comfort of merino wool, and the entire footbed is machine washable.  The process involved reducing materials, but amplifying each one by manipulating it for movement.

EK LAB was a concept to represent future thinking for Timberland’s Earthkeepers Collection. We researched consumer and market insights, as well as materials and new methods of make. HOW AND WHY created the branding concept, and explored new construction methods for circular design, considering the end of product life.

There’s much to be done to achieve the north star vision of closing the loop in product design, especially in footwear and fashion. We have spent years doing extensive research on biodegradable sourcing streams, and stay at the forefront of research on biofabricated materials. It’s our passion and we guide brands to meet their Sustainability goals.

We have over 25 years experience designing for leading footwear brands in multiple categories.  Footwear design has unique complexities, combining a matrix of design inputs (performance, biomechanics, fit, pattern, trends, and methods of make)

In this example - Years before Athleisure was a thing - we saw that our more mobile culture was demanding a new kind of footwear. Women needed something that could work all day no matter what they had planned. These insights inspired the modular design of the Nike Air Max Verona (2002).

One big difference between the experience of women and men runners is safety.  These insights led us to design this running collection with a safety whistle for women to wear around their wrist when running alone. 

A quote from a letter to Nike from one customer: “I cannot tell you how moved I was by your company’s commitment to helping women increase their safety factor while enjoying the wonders of exercise! You are truly a role model for all athletic suitors! As a mom, I thank you for making me feel a lot better about my daughter’s passion for running! We will be long-time Nike customers!”

Design work: Stephanie Howard

Photography credit: @archive.dna

Color, Material, and Finish strategy is vital to the design process. It is an essential element of product innovation, and never an afterthought. Experience building products with various materials, and knowledge of how they are processed and manufactured, give us an edge when ideating new concepts. Decades of working with seasonal trends adds insight to curation.

Insight drives everything ... Bridging the gap between what is and what could be.  Our experience gleaning insights from quantitative data, as well as qualitative and ethnographic research is key to our success. Informed design is Inspired design. 

This image is an example of insight research done while I was Innovation Director at Seventh Generation. Participating in home visits with new mothers, visual concepts were used to glean their interests in design features as well as their thoughts and feelings about Sustainability.

Creative direction for Titleist Bags and Headwear involved integrating authentic golfer insights, brand authenticity, and progressive materialization to inform the design team. The result was a cohesive design language that is unique to the brand.

In 2016, the retail landscape for golf bags was a “sea of sameness.” Titleist needed to establish a premier position with their Gear Line. My work began with Creative Direction for the new line, harnessing the authenticity of the brand on the PGA Tour, which I used to implement distinct brand differentiation. I designed signature graphic cues which were used to identify proprietary materials that we incorporated into the design. (Final bag design collaboration with Ian Burgess, Titleist)  

Designing lifestyle and fashion products keeps us on top of seasonal trends, and provides a platform for creative mashups within a set of parameters different from sport product.  Multi-occasion wearability factor in, while self expression rules decision-making at point of purchase.

The Timberland X Betabrand project shown here was a community and data informed design exercise. Utilizing insights in real time through fast-paced sketching phases to get a product to retail in far less time than the typical footwear development cycle.

Macrotrends in culture give us a view into the emerging future.  Curating these societal movements into focus areas for Innovation Opportunity Mapping is a fundamental service we provide. 

In 2019, the NB 850 was reissued 23 years after it was originally designed. Limited in quantities, it became a collector’s sneaker, and known for the one thing it was missing - the standard central N Logo. I was invited to share some history and tell the story of how that came to be.

Innovation includes tinkering and exploration.  Materials choices are key to product success.  Developing new materials creates a competitive edge and investing the time to explore in this capacity is important. 

Strategy is guided by insights, macrotrends, and a brand's unique vision. We specialize in collaborating with brands and product lines to create a visual language of their authentic story.

Creative Direction leadership is essential when multiple creatives work on products and brand.  We build unifying Design Ethos based on insights, macrotrends, and a brand's authentic identity.

From Retail shelves to Olympic Track & Field to NHL ice, our experience creating powerful visual impact is broad.  Design details are considered from micro to macro viewpoints.

Working with innovation teams to utilize new methods of make.  It streamlines the process to trial and validate concepts prior to putting them in line.

Storytelling gives voice to a brand and builds deeper connections with the people who are touched by the products we design.  This can manifest in many forms, from a product's features to a limited edition collection celebrating the heritage of an event.  

Design collaboration credit to Martin Yeeles

Photo credit: Titleist

The uniqueness of this rapidly growing space is that wearable products have always served a functional value, while expressing our unique identity via their aesthetic value.  We have knowledge of insights from both of these worlds and provide a leadership edge in translating the emerging future.

Photography credit: Lane Turner of The Boston Globe. On March 3, 1996, Stephanie was featured in The Boston Globe Magazine for her work as a designer at New Balance Athletic Shoe.

In 2019, the shoe laying by her side in the photo (NB850) was re-released in the market.

Stephanie co-founded WiST Next Gen with Shivi Srikanth, Lydia Hanewich, and Marilou McFarlane (Founder of Women in Sports Tech) because we believe diversity and inclusion need a roadmap. Our objective is to provide role models for young women in careers that engage their passion of sports, motivating them to pursue opportunities in the sports tech industry in which women and underserved communities are vastly underrepresented. See the content we’re creating here.

WiST is a community of business experts, startup veterans, sport scientists, developers, product designers, marketers and students committed to the development of growth opportunities for women throughout the sports tech landscape. Stephanie is on the Board of Directors, and is proud to join a team dedicated to mentoring and empowering women in their career goals.

The 90’s and early 2000’s sneaker revival is here, and we’ve been asked to show what’s in our design archives. Find them here