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Decreate offers his thoughts on deck graphics One day, whilst surfing on the trusty talkfest of awesomeness that is the atbsports forum, I happened to stumble upon a thread started by ex-scuz/mountainboard mag’s Kris wheelieboard Welsh. He posed the question, “..Mountainboard graphics.. Gash or great?” Now, having had my artwork on surf, skate and snowboards, I got to wondering what I would put on a mountainboard. I’ve always customized my own boards and even wrote an article on ‘customizing your ride’ in ATBmag in November 2003, and have funked-up shed-loads of mountainboards since. Ironically I’ve kept my own current deck pretty clean of customization, couple of Rem stickers, natch, but I love the graphics. Unfortunately it was a prototype deck that never went into full manufacture due to the fact it was a bit small and broke under pro testing. Fortunately I’m not a pro so the sketchy-wolf-beast deck is still going strong on the freeride 3 years later. Thanks guys J So what of other board sports? Surfboards had a craft-driven, hand painted, often unique style. They had their own imagery, inspired by natural flowing forms, like the waves, and by simple hot-rod details of pinstripes and airbrushing. The slightly hippy, natural and organic ethos was subverted in skating to a more punky aesthetic, clashing neon’s giving way to disposable shock imagery. Snowboards, being more expensive and less disposable, took board graphics to another dimension. Considered graphical compositions gave us boards that belonged on gallery walls, and the nature of requiring differing sized boards meant each deck could have alternate versions, offering a wider variation on colours and images, with new technologies offering better reproductive print quality, such as die-cut bases, sublimation and digital screening. Snowboard graphics have become Fine Art, with companies like ‘Ride’ producing awesome eclectic collections annually. Entire books have been written on board graphics, from surf/sk8/sno covering ‘Bored? Board’, ‘Boards: The art & design of the skateboard’ and there’s even a book on ‘Skateboard stickers’. But when will mountainboards get the graphical treatments they deserve? From the early days, mountainboards have had what is arguably the lamest history of artistic daubings in any boardsport. Regardless of the fact that riders may sticker-up their decks, boards can remain on the shelves due to the fact they look so ultimately lame. The problem is magnified when spending hundreds of pounds. Good artwork can make a board more desirable. It needs to inspire, to make the board look like it’s worth the investment. It shouldn’t even really be a consideration as we want it for it’s technical ability; the way it rides, not the way it looks. “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover” they say, but we do. And if it looks like a toy people will think it’s a toy. ATB graphics have come second best for too long, and that has to change. Unfortunately, with such a small industry, the choices are limited. With such a subjective thing as ‘taste’, even the big manufacturers choose to play safe. Boards utilizing a solitary company logo can’t really be discriminated against as it shows off the other aspects. For instance, NoSno have one plain logo so as not to distract from the truth of what the boards are about. That, and their surface area is tiny. Trampa have their funky black ( rope-like ) weave texture which is cool- bombproof and of itself. They also experimented with various coatings, but always keeping it simple. MBS meanwhile, started with simple logos but quickly adopted early skate-style graphics. Their best-selling board of 1999, the grasshopper, was shocking, and not in a good way. Their high-point in design came early noughties with the Sol 16 and original Comp 16’s, which alluded to Burton snowboards. Stylish, graphic-y and aspirational, even the 2 nd gen Comp 16 pro, Core 16 and Core 26X were a comprehensive series. Unfortunately, IMHO, the graphics went downhill with the infamous 'compass' fiasco but have certainly perked up recently. Their only ‘alternative’ or ‘risky’ graphics have been the Jereme Leafe foxy leafy lady and the recent Leon Robbins Pro ( which looks like a it was scrawled by the same deranged nightmarish rabid cat it depicts). Although to quote Joe Schmoe, " They've gone out there and tried something a bit daring, and for that I applaud 'em!” here, here. Scrub's simplicity ( green, red, blue ) reflected their entry-level boards a few years ago although have adopted a darker, spacey star-trek theme more recently, while Earthboard, Kheo and Biohazard all obviously gave little real consideration to what they were saying with their attempts. Exit’s are marginally better, there's a couple of pretty cool designs but most are equally as derivative. Ground Industries meanwhile have gone from random graf-skate illustrations to a considered collection- eclectic but cohesive. Munro does a similar thing, slightly more contrived, but cool and considered nonetheless - graphicy, clean, and commercial. All time graphical lameness award goes to Blu-Earth, for being stuck in 1988... Some confusion stems from the crossover nature, from Powerkiters ( who refer to it as ‘Landboarding’ ), to grom skaters to affluent snowboarders to “who the hell are we marketing this for anyway?” What’s the target market? Whatever, I noticed that a fair number of us mountainboardologists do care about what our boards look like. Maybe it’s got a name like ride pride. It’s why you buy wheels that bling or a logo t-shirt. It’s fashion, and taste. It’s style. And without style, you’re just gonna funk up the joint, Holmes. Unfortunately the problem mounts when, to paraphrase forum-user ‘Fruit cake’, “the graphics wouldn't seem so bad if you didn't have 150 all in a pile at comps combining their shitness.” Too true. Until the time we all love the artwork under our feet, you’re still free to do it yourself. We can, and probably will, continue to customize our decks regardless of the pictures underneath, but it’s just personalisation. Stickers, stencils, doodles, make it yours. A recent print innovation has seen one-off big vinyl stickers become more affordable too, as displayed·proudly·by Hill 62 and a few other braves, and I for one would love to see more of these; Dogboards is in downtime, so I looked in to it and if there's enough interest, will soon be able to offer a Remolicious alternative to your own graphical deck-design disasters, and i get to design some mountainboards too:) rock on.. Here's a taster of the visual treats to come in 2009 ;) peace! ATBsports forum, Jim'll fix it for you! The BFC:" A picture of skeletons heading to war on flying carpets, or a crocodile fighting a pterodactyl is the sort of thing that lad's lads like the BFC want." ... Olli ‘Bomber’ Morrison: "I reckon they should do a simple clean graphic and a more intense style graphic on the same deck. A bear VS an elephant. that would be a damn sweet graphic". Arno VDV: (note: this last one was designed for Amo in 2005 before the Jeremy Leafe mbs came out) Herbal riders! COMING SOON: keep 'em peeled All artwork and opinions by decreate aka Dan Wilson |
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