Crossfit, if you haven’t heard of it, is an intense workout program for athletes and martial artists. This studio in Massachusetts hit me up to help them out with an identity. They requested the gothic type and that I incorporate the tomoe into it. I see crossfit training as a means of gaining much strength and becoming very physically fit, but there’s also a group dynamic to it. Those who you train with go through the sweat and the tears with you and are encouraging. The sword symbolizes the brutal strength that you train to harness, and the chains represent the bond you’ll create with other trainees and trainers.

The GLOBE range is finally done! You’re getting an advanced preview of the line from inside the Dwindle Distribution showroom. Sssshhhh… don’t tell anyone..

And now for another hush hush… not saying any more.

Did a bunch of DIY promos for Globe at the Transworld Skate Awards last month. Just getting around to putting up pics now..

I mentioned all of this on twitter I think, but here’s the recap of what got churned out (quickly) for the event.

MUMFORD Balloon

Found this shot of Matt Mumford to begin illustrating off of. He was nominated for “Best Transition” skater of the year by Transworld Skate, so we honored him by littering Hollywood and Vine with black balloons with his face on em.

Here’s how the sketch based on that photo came out.

And here it is on the balloon.

In context. iPhone cameras suck at night.

DIY T-shirts

The day before the award show I got a box of white t-shirts and went at em with spray paint and some stencils.

I had to add a little something to mine.

Stoke Int. has hit me up for another piece, which I’m starting to work on. That reminded me that I had this pic from the last package they sent me with one of the shirts I did up for them. The next one’s gonna be nuthin like it!

That also reminded me that I wanted to post up this little Dunny that the homie Kevin C. dropped off days ago. Thanks again, Kevin!

Effin love cheeseburgers – but who doesn’t?

There’s a lot of really great… well… a couple of really decent longboards out there on the market right now. Trouble is, unless you live by a beach or college town, you’re local skate/surf shop probably doesn’t carry too many, if any. We all could use a cruiser to get us from A to B at times, especially when you don’t wanna push all that hard – like say on your way to and from the liquor store. So here’s the deal, I’m saying if you can’t find one you’re down with in your area and/or don’t wanna spend a bunch of money buying one online and having it shipped, I suggest doing a little customization to make something unique that you’re gonna dig because it’s your own personal flavor and you’ll have poured some sweat equity into it.

You’re gonna need a deck, trucks, wheels, bearings, grip and hardware, and maybe riser pads depending on wheel clearance. When it comes to your wood, it’s all about what shape you’re into and what you can find laying around or on the cheap. I had this swalllow-tail deck laying around for a while – ot’s nothing super special and was previsouly screen printed on for a promo. For a cruiser, the quality of the wood isn’t terribly dire – you’re probably not gonna be ollying it unless it’s a real shortie and even then, so what. Truck and wheel combos are fully up to you as well, just all has to work together. Wheel-bite sucks.

On to customizing. I started out by giving mine a flat coat of black as a base.

Took a little while to figure out what I wanted my art to be and after mentally running the gamut between everything from super basic to overly detailed and hand-done I decided on some real clean, simple but bold stripes. I’ve been on a black and bright-ass green kick so that’s the color combo. It’s easy to do stripes, all you need is two colors of spray paint and some masking tape.

After a couple black coats dried (for a day or so..) it’s set for a second color. Just drop some tape lines on there and spray away. The areas in between tape lines got smaller for me as I went up the board.

You can pull the tape while the paint is still drying – sometimes you get cleaner lines that way. The green I used is called Green Apple from Montana. They have some blazing colors. Dries retardedly fast too. Was able to do 3 coats in under an hour.

To match up with the black and green stripes on the board I liked the idea of green wheels with black stripes.

I had some blank green 63mm wheels laying around, so with a standard Sharpie I added my black stripes. The ink dries almost immediately. Though, drawing straight lines on a curved surface proves to be more challenging than it seems.

After everything’s dry it’s time to slug it all together. The inverted trucks you see on these are OEM by “SLANT”. They’re loose as f*ck and in my opinion are pretty rad. I know by way of word that they’re gonna be sold in pairs by Globe in the near future, so keep an eye out if you think you’ll be into ‘em. Hardware was donated by Nano from Speed Demons, Thanks Nano!

For grip I’m trying out some EVA samples that I can use with shoes or barefoot if I’m down on the Strand, pushing from bar to bar on the weekend. The soft EVA cuts like butter with an Exacto knife.

That’s it. Not a terribly difficult project, most of the stuff you can source from used boards or throw a couple bucks at here and there. So there you have it, a custom longboard that you can be proud of, using recycled parts and done cheap. Now off to the beach for a beer..

The other day I got a small, heavy pachage in the mail. I pulled out this book and remembered that about a year ago I got hit up to be included in this book about design blogs. I opened it up and found the little write-up on this here blog on about the 6th page. Pretty sweet placement!

Thank you, Macarena for including me. Let’s see if any new eyeballs come and have a look..

Transworld Skate’s 11th annual SKATEboarding awards are tomorrow (fri. 6/11) in Hollywood and one of Globe’s most active veterans, Matt Mumford,  has been nominated for “Best Transition” [skater of the year]. In his honor we thought it would be a cool idea to do some real grassroots kinda promo.. and why not? Everyone loves getting off the computer and getting their hands dirty every so often. Well, at least I do.

First up, on a super last-minute kick we got a shit-ton of balloons cranked out which of course needed artwork, hence one-color Mumford portrait above. Here’s how that went down.

classic Mumford photo steez

1. Found this classic straight-on shot of Mums to use as the basis for the illustration.

2. It’s easier to figure out how you’re gonna make it happen on paper before gettin onto the computer. Like they always say, the computer’s a tool, get yer shit down first before commiting it to vector. As you can see I had some trouble trying to figure out what to do around his jaw line.. had to work that out in my head and on some scratch paper before getting busy with illustrator. But, as this was a rush rush kinda gig, didn’t have too much time to waste stressing on it.

3. Finish illustration in vector, get rid of any extraneous color, paths, etc. Deliver artwork to vendor for quick turnaround, get sample, take shitty iPhone picture on otherwise awesome green couch. Real happy they decided to go with white print on black balloons even though the ink got choked a bit.

Next up on the to-do hit list was some straight-up D-I-Y t-shirts for some of the guys to rock to tomorrow’s award show.

Got a stack of blanks this morning and with seriously little time and no budget, I got about 25 shirts knocked out with only 2 stencils and a king can of black spray paint. You heard me say, DIY, right!?

.. surf team poster made for a pretty good stencil. Got super wet, but never blew out.

.. all the shirts laying out to dry. Drying racks?? Psshah.. when you gotta get it done, sometimes you just gotta get it done dirty. Each one’s done a little different.

On the off chance you’re attending tomorrow evening, lookfor the dude whose shirt with the sleeves ripped off says, “kil kil kill” on the back and come say what’s up.

So what have I been up to that’s been keeping me so quiet lately? Well, one project that’s consumed the vast majority of my time has been the next Globe skateboard range. The image above is a little sneak of a board that was a last-minute addition and turned out to be one of my favorites in the line.
Wish I could show more, but leak all of that hard work too soon and potentially get bitten off. Not that they’re magic or anything, but a step in the right direction from last year’s line and the line before that.

Over the years I’ve used this t-shirt template to mock up concepts, to pitch clients and even to display tees from a future line in catalogs. I’ve gotten plenty of use out of it and now I only see fit to pass it on to others.

You might say, but GoMedia’s already provided designers with awesome t-shirt templates. Why would we want yours instead? Well, although they have multiple shirts and fronts and backs and yada yada yada.. this one’s completely FREE. All the paths are there. Changing colors is easy. Rerofitting the type and background to mesh with your t-shirt project is no sweat.

T-Shirt Presentation Template Layers

Like all good things on the internet worth paying for.. someone eventually comes along and bastardizes them and then gives it out for free. So all apologies to any other folks out there selling a similar item. I believe in a design community where people share and share alike. I think it’ll make us all better designers in the end. Though with that being said, if you need other garments or require more vivid lighting I do suggest you look into the GoMedia templates. For what you’ll get out of em the price isn’t bad.

I implore you to give this template a download and use it for any project that fits yer fancy. I ask nothing in return. If you need help figuring out how to use this, I suggest reading up you have a look here – though it’s my opinion that after playing around with it for just a couple minutes you’ll probably get it figured out. With that I wish you happy Photoshopping.

DOWNLOAD the Track6 T-Shirt Presentation Template by clicking HERE. (46mb)

Sick of having to strap on ridiculous clown-gear to roll at your local park and avoid tickets? Let’s get pad laws out of our skateparks dammit!

The following email (after the jump) came from John Bernards, the Executive Director of The International Association of Skateboard Companies. If you agree, do something about it. Send a letter. Re-post this shit on your own blog or email it out to whoever will listen. Let’s take some action.

Dear IASC Members, friends, and family,

As many of you know, IASC has been working tirelessly for many years to change the laws affecting California’s public skateparks. We were previously able to extend the bill which protects public skateparks, but in doing so, had to make some concessions in the bill.

Recently IASC has been working to remove the outdated clause under which skateparks must require elbow and knee pads to be worn while skating in public skateparks.

As any skateboarder knows, pads do not prevent serious injury and requiring them actually deters skateboarders from frequenting their local skateparks and in many cases forces them into the most dangerous place to skateboard, city streets.

In 2008 IASC had a meeting with Assembly woman Lori Saldana who picked up the cause and has been working to get the Assembly Bill 874 passed for California’s skateboarders.

Now is the time for you to get involved.

Please join IASC in a letter writing campaign to help get this bill passed! Write a letter to your State Senator encouraging them to support AB 874. With your help, the pad laws will be removed, the tickets will stop, and skateboarders will skate freely in California’s skateparks.

Below is an example of a letter you might send. Of course a letter in your own words is the best representation of your support, but this one makes all the important points, so feel free to use it. And for your convenience IASC has supplied some easy step by step instructions on how to get this done.

Feel free to post this info on your web sites, send it to your family, friends, staff, and fellow skateboarders.

Let the letter writing campaign begin!!

STEP ONE:

Click here to find your assembly person http://www.leginfoca.gov/cgi-bin/memberinfo

Enter your zip code to find your representatives information.

STEP TWO:

Click on the name of all representatives found on your page (this should bring up their email address in your email program)

STEP THREE:

Copy and paste the letter below (or write your own)

STEP FOUR: (THIS ONE IS IMPORTANT!)

Replace the info in red / parentheses with the appropriate Senator’s names and info about yourself.

It is important to include your name and address so they know you are a California resident in their district (in other words- a current or future voter!).

NOTE: You could also fax and/or mail this letter to the fax/address found on the representatives page- if that is how you prefer to communicate.

Dear Senator (insert the name or names of the senator in YOUR district):

I am contacting you regarding Assembly Bill 874 (Saldana). I am a [skateboarder, parent of a skateboarder, skateboarding advocate, concerned citizen, etc.] who resides in your district. I urge you to support and vote for AB 874, which removes the requirement of wearing elbow pads and knee pads at public skateparks and makes them helmet only.

Although counterintuitive, current law threatens child safety by prohibiting skaters without pads from using the safest possible environment for skateboarding (public skatepark) and forcing them into the most dangerous place to skateboard (our cities streets, sidewalks, and parking lots).

AB 874 represents a more realistic and practical application of Section 115800. Passage of AB 874 encourages more kids to use public skateparks eliminating the dangers of traffic, uneven surfaces and pedestrians.

Again, I kindly urge you to support AB 874.

Thank you.

(Your Name)

(Your Address)

John Bernards
Executive Director, IASC
The International Association of Skateboard Companies
22431 Antonio Parkway Suite B160-412
Rancho Santa MargaritaCA, 92688
Phone 949 455 1112 Fax 949 455 1712
johnbernards@skateboardiasc.org

Go Skateboarding Day is June 21 every year!
www.goskateboardingday.org

IASC
The International Association of Skateboard Companies http:www.skateboardiasc.org is a non-profit organization that represents the United Voice of the skateboard industry to the outside world. Driven by skate industry leaders, IASC goals include: Promoting skateboarding, Increasing participation, Education, Saving members money while pushing skateboarding forward.
www.skateboardiasc.org
www.goskateboardingfoundation.org