Here’s the look book we started sending out last week to retailers for the fall 2011 / winter 2012 Yobeat line. This stuff should be available in select snowboard related shops around the country in the coming month or so, and it’s all available now on the Yobeat online store. In addition to the above Issue flipbook, it’s also downloadable as PDF here. All this stuff gets designed and printed in house. 25 different styles plus colorways… I didn’t realize it was that much stuff until we put it all together.

Since summer is in full swing, and two of the major snowboard summer camps are on Mt. Hood, right outside Portland (there is snow there year round), we wanted to do a special Yobeat shirt for the summer that had a kitchy tourist sort of feel… A souvenir of sorts for some of the campers and staff up there to take home. We ended up with a nice clean vector illustration of Mt. Hood’s silhouette, with a two-color print.

Rather than just design them and hand off a disk to someone else, I printed a ton of them myself right here on our press. One of the things I like about design and photography is the hands on part… the process of making shit. That hands on process is easy to lose when you pass off a computer file to a printer. I try to get as much hand done process in as I can, when I can, which is part of the reason I like screen printing. Now that we have a set-up in house, I get to do more experimenting, and keep myself sane and off the computer at times.

These are sort of a “locals only edition.” We’re not selling them in our online store. We gave away one free to each of the snowboard campers at the first week of camp at Windell’s (it was “YoBeat Week” at camp) and they’ll be for sale exclusively through Exit Real World’s Government Camp location throughout the summer. I just shipped up a batch yesterday for those guys so keep your eyes peeled in their shop if you want to get your hands on one. After the jump I’ve posted a few detail shots, and some images I poached from the Yobeat Facebook Page of kids wearing them around snowboard camp last week. Turned out to be a great promo, and kids like free stuff.

I mentioned this video a couple weeks ago, that’s been up over on LevelMag.com in their player. I had a bunch of great stuff left over from the Yobeat interviews I did with Draplin that I posted a little while back, and just couldn’t leave this stuff on the cutting room floor. Like the Yobeat videos, this one got featured over on the design site Notcot.org, and received a lot of good feedback. Aaron’s become a big name in the design world in recent years, and his work hold up to the image he’s built. Check out his workif you haven’t already.

I’ve been doing design work for Woodward Camp since 2006-ish. I do the catalogs every year, as well as a lot of the advertising, collateral, shirts, etc. They’re growing constantly, even expanding internationally, and there’s always something new going on, so it’s fun stuff. We work with a number of different brands in our office, both big and small, but Woodward is one of the most consistent. This year’s print and web look started with a sheet of steel in my garage, a few stencils, and some muriatic acid. The resulting rusty steel textures got used as subtle elements in the catalogs this year, but they take on more of a roll in the ads. Essentially, I quick-rusted the area around the stencil with the acid and water, then shot photos of the result to use in the designs. The textures got worked in with some provided action photography (I shot the BMX ad of Morgan Wade) and we were off and running. We also worked QR codes into the print campaign this year, to direct readers to the various Woodward web portals by simply scanning them with their smart phone. See the ads after the jump.

Woodward did a larger online marketing push this year than in previous years. We used the tagline “Come Ride With Us” and “Come Skate With Us” throughout the online campaign. Here’s a small sampling of those ads, which are currently running in a number of sizes and iterations.

The second part of the video interview I did with design guru Aaron Draplin is up on Yobeat. This one talks a lot about his work ethic… scrapping together a lot of “little stuff” versus working with the big guys. He also touches on early graphic influences including legendary skate artists like Jim Phillips. If you get the chance to see one of his design lectures around the country, do it.

Before the SIA Tradeshow (the big snow industry show) in Denver, we threw around some ideas in the office in regards to handouts for Yobeat advertisers, pro riders, and overall cool people. Something to give away in meetings or run-ins that wasn’t just a business card that they threw in their bag and forgot about. We wanted to do something that made an impression quickly and that people would actually look at. We also wanted to communicate visually that Yobeat is more than a snowboard web site, we also help brands create marketing strategies. We thought about basic t-shirts and hats, but everyone does that, and again, they just get tossed in a SWAG bag with other tradeshow goodies, often to be forgotten about.

Yobeat’s traffic has grown tremendously in the last year, so we had to show that we were just as “Pro” as the corporate guys, but still had that DIY mentallity that sports like snowboarding are born from. In other words, Pro, without being too Pro. Since we’ve been doing all of our new apparel in-house, a t-shirt was a good way to promote that, but we didn’t want to be cliché about it. So we decided upon a packaging option we could create in-house that would contain a limited edition t-shirt (we did 60 shirts using our new script design, in a limited gold flake ink just for the show), as well as a limited edition die-cut sticker, a screen printed Yobeat sticker, and of course, our business cards. The shirts and header cards for the packaging were all screen printed in house. Woven tags were sewn onto the shirt for a custom, finished feel, and everything got put together and shipped off to Denver. We got a lot of great response. The general reaction seemed to be “Holy shit, you guys got Pro.” A few brands quickly asked us about the creative direction side of what we do, so it worked well. We gave away all 60 pieces pretty quickly, and at this point I don’t even have one for myself.

The draw to design for me is the actually creation. I’d much rather create something on a small budget entirely in-house if we have the opportunity. This was the perfect opportunity to do that. Had we outsourced these, it would have been too costly, but in-house they were about $3 each. Check out some more details after the jump. The white with gold was a tradeshow only edition, but we may be releasing a gold ink black shirt version in the future (without the fancy kit, though).

At some point last year I started helping design more apparel for the snowboard site YoBeat, trying to take things beyond its basic logo t’s. At some point in the process we got the bug to take things one step further, and make more of an apparel line, sell it on the site, and hopefully get it into some shops. In recent years, part of brand marketing has become creating content around a brand, hopefully getting that content played as editorial content. It’s advertorial. Or advertising disguised as editorial. We went the opposite direction, and started creating a brand out of an existing editorial voice and content stream. There was a built in audience, so why not. So far it’s worked out well. A number of shops around the country have already signed on to carry the goods, and we’ve been selling the stuff through Yobeat’s online store. The products market the site, the site markets the products. One can go without the other, and the gear can stand on its own. We set up an in-house screen printing shop so we could streamline producing samples, and also keep things within the realm of the DIY approach YoBeat has taken throughout the years. So far so good.

Above are a couple of the new shirts in the line, to which we’ve added sewn on woven tags to the lower left front. The new “Snowboarding is Super Fun” shirt is a play on the ironic hipster type shirts you see at streetwear shops. The only YoBeat branding being the small woven tag. Hipsters rejoice. It’s even got swashes on the type. After the jump you’ll find some more details, larger views, and some new embroidered patches we’ve created as well. This stuff is a nice break from doing commercial work for clients. On that stuff there’s always compromise. With this stuff we get to do what we like, and even produce most of it in-house, keeping it fun and hands-on. The new shirts should be on the online store later this week, and you can also find some other designs over there are up in the Yobeat store now. This is just the beginning of the new stuff for 2011.

To find YoBeat apparel at a shop near you, click here or click here to order online.

Just got the last of these back from the printer. This is much of September and October around the studio. This is the fifth year in a row we’ve produced the catalogs for Woodward Camp, the largest Action Sports, Gymnastics and Cheer summer camps/training facilities in the world. This year it was five catalogs in total (three for Woodward in PA, two for Woodward West). We’re designing for a broad, young audience on these — about 7-17 years of age. It’s a relatively quick turnaround for the scope of the project (five forty-page catalogs in two months), but the quick pace and deadlines keep things fun. You can check out a few details after the jump.

Our friends over at Woodward Camp just launched a new educational program — a boarding school of sorts — combining BMX, Skateboarding, Snowboarding, Music, and various art programs with traditional college-prep education. Above is the mark we designed for program a couple months back. A W/U combination with an ever so subtle nod to a spine ramp. You can read more about the program here.

The iPad does have more to offer than become the saving grace the book and magazine publishing industries are hoping for. My initial impression, and what held me back from picking one up at first, was that it is just a bigger version of my iPhone. A lot of what I use a computer for can’t be done on the iPad (it runs on a slimmed-down OS like the iPhone). No Photoshop, Indesign, Illustrator, Word, Excel, etc. But there are a lot of handy apps for achieving utilitarian tasks. Taking notes, creating contacts, managing time, checking the weather, blogging, social networking etc., etc. Again, you can do those on your iPhone. If I didn’t have a computer, it would fill in some gaps, however to get most of the functionality from the iPad it must be synced to a computer. The internet usability alone is a much different experience on the iPad than the iPhone. You can quickly go blind and frustrated on your phone trying to read the web, but the iPad is much more readable due to it’s heftier size. The functionality is the same as the iPhone in the browsing regard, it’s just more accordingly sized. The publication apps (including Wired) are neat, but I don’t think they’ve quite yet lived up to their interactive experience potential. It remains to be seen if people will pay for them beyond the first issue release novelty (as of this morning Wired had sold more than 24,00 copies of its first iPad issue).

From a photographer and media person standpoint, one of the main selling points for me was the idea of being able to use it in place of a traditional printed portfolio. A nice portfolio book in itself can run well over a hundred dollars, then add in the custom prints, and the constant wear from page flipping/use, and suddenly $500 doesn’t seem to bad. A printed portfolio can approach that neighborhood quickly, and that’s just one book. On the iPad, photographers can create multiple books on the same device, which for someone like myself is necessary. I just dragged my images into an iPhoto gallery, organized them how I wanted, and synced it to my iPad. Done. The photos look amazing on the glossy screen, and users can flip from one to the next at the swipe of a finger. And for the time being, aside from being functional, there’s still a bit of a “that’s neat” feel to it.

One of, if not the most important asset to the portfolio usage for me, is the ability to also carry video reels as well as photographs. With the introduction of video into DSLR’s, and the ability to deliver motion on the internet, more and more photographers shoot video as well as still photos. You can’t put video in a printed book. Video works beautifully on the iPad. Much like I can with multiple photo albums (portfolios), I can have multiple video projects for different presentation purposes. It’s perfect.

I’ve begun stuffing my iPad full of photo, video and design work. I’ll keep a printed book handy for the purposes of mailing around, but other than that the iPad is a much better solution. I can swap out photos at the click of a button, and it doesn’t cost me any more out of pocket like prints would. The iPad can also be plugged into a projector, making slideshow presentations easy (another thing m printed book couldn’t do). What’s more is that now I can surf the internet and check my email from my portfolio. Could you do all those things from a laptop? Of course, but it’s a bit more cumbersome, especially when passing around, and it’s just not as streamlined of a presentation. I wouldn’t want my work presented that way.

One great unadvertised use that’s neat for photographers is that the iPad actually works fairly well as a lightbox. There is an app called flashlight for the iPhone, and when used on the iPad, you end up with a fully lit white-light surface, which works well when you need a lightbox in a pinch. In addition, photographers also have the ability to download digital photos directly from a card to the device via an accessory card reader. I don’t have a need for that, but it’s nice to know it’s a possibility.

If that’s not enough, it’s pretty handy for surfing the web on the couch, and watching movies on Netflix. Let’s call it “Portfolio +.”