2009/2010 Calliope Series
The graphic for these snowboards is a colourfull collage of advertisements that we have collected over the years. Some of these ads are very strange. For the most part we took only sections of the ads. Although almost everything on all of these snowboards is taken out of context that didn't really abstract the words any more than when they were used in context.
Researching ephemera is always a long and tedious process but, it can be rewarding. Even looking at these files months later we had forgotten how many layers were on each snowboard and started to notice and find things that we didn't know was there or see before.
The graphic was also printed on a clear material to expose the balsa wood core. I think these snowboards are one of those things though that you have to see in real life and hold. At the time of writing this we have not yet seen these in real life but anxiously await their arrival.
2008/2009 Calliope Series
One of the owners of Signal Snowboards Dave
Lee saw a piece we created as part of a series of illustrations we did for our website sometime ago. He liked them and wanted to form them into a graphic for the 2008, 2009 Calliope snowboards.
The concept of the series were these random sayings paired with these simple illustrations.
In the illustrations we added a hidden element through the use of flowers that have different meanings. We liked that the presentation of specific flowers at specific times have different meanings and thought that was a good way to express an interpretation of the subject matter.
We used a different flower for each illustration, the flowers used on the snowboards are, a Forget-Me-Not, which means "true love, memories", a Lily of the Valley, which means "you complete me", a Sweetpea, which means "good-bye, departure, blissful pleasure or thank you for a lovely time". Should we say which ones are on which snowboards?
2007/2008 Park Series
The concept for this graphic was created a long time ago. It started out as a series of sketches in our sketchbooks, we would often create a series of sketches of random objects revolving around a theme. We would use these sketches as experiments to practice and develop our creative process, and to get used to processing different concepts in different ways.
We looked at flight mostly as a symbol of freedom, and creativity. Objects that have some sort of flying capabilities tend to have an intriguing surreal quality, which made them good subjects to illustrate for our experiments, and was part of the reason we always ended up reverting back to them.
As time went on we would always revisit our experiments, and every time would create a new result, eventually the objects progressed from random flying objects to these odd hybrids containing a variety of flight systems from other flying objects.
In the past we have never even considered using any of our experimental subject matter for projects other than our own personal development, over time we had become attached to them, we had lived with them for so long, they were dear to us.
But, after being briefed by Signal and hearing about their concept, and the process for both the manufacturing and the graphic application of the snowboards, we knew our experiments would be perfect for the project.
Signal Snowboards 2008 Website
This was the layout and design of the Signal Snowboards website for the 2007, 2008 year. We designed a modular site, and included a series of illustrated animations that would change with every refresh of the page in the top header area. We also created a number of animated banner ads based on this design for display on other sites; Transworld Snowboarding, Snowboard-Mag and Snowboard Canada. In late 2008 when their new site was launched we created more animated banners for Signal for use across a wider range of websites.
