Black Powder Customs Interview
When did the company first start? Why did the artists involved want their work printed on snowboards?
Black Powder Customs was born in 2009. The idea came to me after the branding & marketing agency I also run (HypeLife Brands) took a shot entering a few of our concepts into a snowboard design contest. Since we sometimes also create various limited edition art pieces in-house in between work for our clients, we found the surface and canvas shape of a snowboard both challenging and exciting. So then I thought, ‘what if we could provide this level of customization to snowboarders at large?’ Rather than snowboarders having to choose between only the few boards and board designs out there, they could create whatever they wanted, or pick from a selection of boards that once purchased, they can know no one else would ever have besides them, making it something truly unique to them. So from there we developed the concept for the brand and made it happen.
How many artists/contributors are there, is each board graphic created by one artist?
All boards are created by our in-house creative team of three. Usually one board design is created from the ground up by one of the creatives, reviewed and tweaked by our team, and then finalized.
What sort of process/criteria do you go through when you decide what designs make the final cut to be marketed, are there a lot of ideas/rough designs that get tossed out?
Typically for every finished snowboard design that comes out, there were 3-6 other sketched comps that were thrown out in favor of rolling forward with the strongest idea. As far as what makes the final cut, that’s where I come in, bringing the overall vision and creative direction to the brand…we have an awesome team that is immensely creative, but we still like to take a step back, constantly asking ourselves, “Have we seen this before?” “What can we do differently?” “How can we bring something different to the table than your typical snowboard designs?” It’s an awesome canvas to work with, full of potential, but often times we find the potential of the board/canvas is way undershot when a larger brand just slaps their logo on it, some bright colors, and calls it good. There’s so much more we like to integrate, cross-pollinating our many influences and backgrounds from music to movies to video games to street art and beyond into boards our customers will dig as much as we do.
Is it hard to make sure you don’t ‘duplicate’ a design too much?
No, not at all actually. We have so many ideas when it comes time to create new boards that this is really never a problem.
Are the graphics/layouts intended to be just unique, one of a kind designs that are aesthetically pleasing, or do any of the designs have underlying meanings/origins that make them stand out?
Often times there’s an underlying meaning, but not always. Sometimes it can be as simple as “you know what would be cool? Zombies.” Like our Zombiefest 1 of 1 board, complete with “Come Get Some” written in blood on the top-sheet. One of our creatives loves zombies of all shapes and sizes, so it seemed only appropriate that we pay tribute to the undead and other lovers of the undead.
We also did a series of 1 of 1 boards that are a tribute to 8-bit video game classics, since that’s a part of many of our roots here… Pac-Man, Galaga, Bomberman and the like. Another was our Billy Mays 1 of 1 board – we thought ‘that dude was awesome…why shouldn’t there be a tribute to him?’ Others are simply on the visually cool side of things… Again, things we’d never seen done on snowboards, to provide something uniqueness to the industry.
Do the boards get individually numbered or receive any sort of special insignias from the artists?
All the snowboards that we’ve created in-house that are available at our website, whether a 1 of 1 snowboard, or a fully custom designed board include an official “Black Powder Customs 1 of 1” marking on the topsheet… Tt’s small, doesn’t take away from the design, and is our mark of authenticity.
In the near future, we’re planning on partnering with some well-known street/tattoo artists, as well as some pro riders out there to do a special 1 of 1 board, which would definitely receive a signature treatment.
The one of a kind concept is an outstanding quality of your company, but the graphics are only worth their appearance when the board they are on is a quality ride. The site explains the components of the board and the quality of the materials used in manufacturing one, as well as the different spec options. No shortcuts are taken; are there any companies you used to base your standards of quality, or are there any other boards you would compare yours to in feel/performance?
There’s a lot of good boards out there…but we didn’t spend much time trying to mimic any particular other brand out there. Instead, we figured out how to make the best snowboard possible, and how to make it within the USA rather than sending it overseas where we’d have a much harder time with quality control, and ensure that every ride was the same level of perfection.
We’ve got several different board series options available so that riders could find a board that suited their riding style the best too – i.e. Those that like to mostly ride park have several options in the M Series or the P Series, those that like cruising or downhill have the T, M, or P series as options, and those that really want to get it in can rock the Pro Series Blunt.
Something for everyone was important to us, so that’s exactly what we created. And if people don’t see a size they’re looking for, they can always drop us a line at contact@blackpowdercustoms.com and we’ll definitely do our best to accommodate them.
So far our 153 P Series and 156 Pro Series Blunt have proven the most popular with our customers. Ultimately we don’t want our customers to just take it from us, so we’re starting to do some interviews with our customers so we can profile them in the near future on our site, blog, and Facebook: how they ride, who they are, and why having a board uniquely tailored to their unique personalities and style is important to them.
We don’t want people to just hear how great our boards are from us, but rather from our customers. One of our recent customers, Zack N. from Australia had this to say about the ride and his 153 P Series full custom: “The vibrant colours and untamed look of the design are 100% my style, something really special about having a board that’s unique to yourself. “Flex” [a design element he wanted that we integrated into the board’s design] is also how I’d put my laid-back attitude into one word if I had to. It is a really responsive board, I don’t have to put much effort into popping a nice ollie, and I’m the only one in the whole world to be rocking this design. Plus it really stands out from all the other boards out on the board racks.” We feel that speaks volumes to our new customers, more than hearing it from us…if our customers don’t absolutely love our boards when they take it out, we’d be doing something wrong and definitely be back at the drawing board. Thankfully that’s not the case.
Does the BPC crew all have their own custom boards they ride?
I come from a skate background, so in Kansas City we have a lot more street to ride than mountains to carve – the rest of the crew here varies, some past staffers have skated, while others love to paint, push pixels, and create more than anything. So for me, if I ride I’m going to be skating (with a custom skate deck for sure). I’m ultimately a superfan of snowboarding, I love to see what our customers pick up and do with the boards, it’s rad and inspiring. I love the mindset of the community too – it’s a lot like the skate community & mentality I grew up around, that’s probably why I relate so naturally to it.
Movies like “First Descent” are what really sparked my love of snowboarding, they completely blew my mind. I loved the attitude, the footage, the off-the-hook desire to do something others had never done before – the risk involved was crazy, but the riders were pretty much fearless – nothing was going to stop them. I love that.
(Of course, I can’t wait to see “The Art of Flight” too which looks beyond sick.)
There must be a wide scope of designs from the 1of1 to customer created graphics you’ve done, the collection is impressive I’m sure. Is it currently or Will it ever be possible to see all the boards that have been created by your company?
Yes, we’ve got a gallery of many of the boards we’ve created at our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/blackpowdercustoms – see the “Board Gallery” section) which we’re continuously adding to and we’ll have a Gallery section up at www.blackpowdercustoms.com by the time this interview goes to print too.
Where are you looking to grow the company in the coming years? Is there anything new or exciting you are releasing soon you wanna share?
We’re going to continue to stay true to what we’re doing, adding more 1of1 options and continuing to forge partnerships with some of the killer artists out there for some sweet new 1of1 offerings…for instance we’d love to do some collabos with artists like BuffMonster, Mad Toy Design (a local here in KC who’s done pieces for KidRobot and Sanrio/HelloKitty, among others – www.madtoydesign.com), maybe even Usugrow. We’re also planning on doing some collabos with some of the killer mags out there (like STEEZ (duh), Transworld, etc) – some custom boards would be rad promos/giveaways as well as for the folks that run these awesome mags that help continually grow the industry (and we want to pay respect to that).
And not to telegraph our passes, but there may be a Black Powder Skate offshoot coming to implement our concept for the skate community too…another art form we dig, a core part of our roots here.
Will there ever be 1of1 theme collections?
Yeah definitely, we’ve got a couple already (the 8-bit series) and also the ninja boards (who doesn’t think ninjas are badass?)…and we plan to do some more in the near future. These would be a great opportunity for the collaborations too for sure.
Are there aspirations to showcase your company’s work as an entire Art collection?
Yes, this has definitely crossed our mind too (are you stalking us?)…we’d love to do this for sure, it’s in the cards.
Will your website become more interactive with customers ‘building’ custom boards virtually?
This is something we’ve debated, and is something we noticed a few other small companies doing, but we’ve opted against it for one reason: quality. Most people don’t really know how to create high-quality, high resolution design files and we don’t want someone to upload artwork that doesn’t turn out as absolutely best as possible when they get their board in.
Getting grainy, crappy looking results because of all the considerations necessary when designing the boards is something we want to help our customers avoid, rather, handling that for our customers so they get their board and are nothing less than ecstatic about it. We want to take the hassle out of this for our customers, which is why our full custom design option is as simple as placing your order at www.blackpowdercustoms.com, then we get in touch with you to see what you’re looking for, and then we create the design options for you to review, tweak it if you want, and then we move the board into final manufacturing.
It’s a process intentionally created to be that easy…so you don’t have to worry about your resolution, file sizes, etc. As all those details are German to most of our customers, but something we know inside and out. It’s why our customers come to us over the few other one-off board options out there which do little more than allow you to upload a logo/image, choose a board color – and that’s it. That just doesn’t cut it for our customers or for anyone who really wants to create something special.
Anybody who wants to connect with us or purchase a board of their own can hit us up on Facebook, Twitter and our website. Got questions? Drop us a line at contact@blackpowdercustoms.com or give us a call at 816-527-8396.
Interviewed By: Taylor Kendall
