Talented footwear designers among you, here's a competition that's too good to pass up: The winner of the Pensole World Sneaker Championship will not only snag $20,016, but will see their winning design go into production and be offered for sale at Foot Locker. Oh yeah, and one other thing: There's no entry fee!

We corresponded with D'Wayne Edwards, founder of the Oregon-based Pensole Footwear Design Academy, to ask him why both the competition and Pensole's classes are free. 

D'Wayne Edwards and Pensole students

"I do not charge tuition to enter PENSOLE because growing up with very little money, I could not afford to attend college," Edwards explains. "I was still blessed to become a footwear designer at age 19 without attending college, but that is not normal. I know there are talented designers out there who cannot afford to attend college, and I do not want that to be a barrier to them living the dream I was blessed to live for the last 27 years of my life."

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Although the competition is free to enter, there is one barrier: Skills. Specifically, sketching skills. If you're a designer that's been hiding behind the computer, this might not be the competition for you. Entrants are meant to read the design brief and submit just one A4 or letter-size page with just two images, a lateral and bottom view of their design, sketched and colored "by hand—NO COMPUTER."

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Given that many of today's drawing programs can produce reasonable facsimiles of pencil and marker, we couldn't resist asking Edwards how he plans to sniff out fakes:

Great question. Well, I am trained to see the difference and I have other trained professionals that work at software companies that will review every submission as well. Now, some people may be just that good, but if you to cheat your way into winning, we will find out either at the beginning or by the end and they will be exposed.

That aside, I see beautiful renderings of bad designs all the time. One of the questions I get often is "What computer programs will help me become a better designer?" and my answer is "Your brain." I wish more people would spend more time working at creating better designs instead of polishing turds... The winner of this tournament will have a better design, not a pretty rendering.

As the name implies, the World Sneaker Championship is international. "The sneaker industry is global and this is one platform to display who has the best talent," Edwards writes. "I see the World Sneaker Championship as a global talent search to provide aspiring footwear designers a platform to display their ability, get discovered, [to potentially enter the] next PENSOLE class to further develop their skills, to fulfill the rare opportunity to have your design sold at the largest athletic footwear retailer in the world in Foot Locker, and to be rewarded for their efforts with $. There is also country pride on the line!"

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Would-be sneaker designers among you, start cracking your knuckles and sign up here. The deadline for the first round is March 6th.