There were many really good designs! However, the judges thought that this design stood out among the 25 finalists. Here is what some of the judges thought about the winning design:
Brendan Murphey (Board Design Product Manager at Burton): “I love the black&white style and depth to the art. Basically it’s quite dynamic while being simple at the same time and this is what I really like. I am curious to the meaning behind the design, seems there is a sun/moon and heaven/hell/religion type of message here. What is this meaning? This is intriguing.”
Danny Burrows (Chief Editor Onboard): "The final field of entrants included a great variety of styles and interpretations of what board graphics can be. But the two main criteria for the contest were innovation and originality and the winning design displayed both these qualities. Well done."
Ludschi (Art Director Pirates Movie Production): This one is fighting against neon colors that overtook the snowboarding world a few years ago. I like that approach and also the unique style. "
Now you might ask yourselves, who is this person behind the winning design?
To find this out, we had to get on a plane and fly to Paris. Her name is Marina Kadysheva. She’s 22 years young and originally comes from Moscow. Before she moved to Paris, where she’s studying, she lived in Canada. Design is her hobby she does together with friends in Moscow, they call themselves “Bananas The Crew”. On Saturday, April 12, we met her in the middle of a crowded place between Eiffel Tower, Louvre and Arc de Triomphe and officially handed out the prize to her. Marina is now the proud owner of a Burton Series 13™ snowboard and a Suzuki Grand Vitara Freeride Edition in her very own design!
Check out this video to see what the board and the car look like in reality and to find out more about our winner and the idea behind the design:
29.03.08 New date for the announcement of the winner
We're really stoked about the great participation! 662 participants from 47 countries uploaded 3298 designs! A big shout out to you all! We also want to thank all the voters! Some 54456 votings generated 15 finalists. Another 10 finalists were elected through wildcards.
New date for the announcement of the winner Now that it's high season for contests (e.g. Burton US Open) and last photo/film shootings this winter, it was really hard to bring all the judges together. The judges took it very seriously and treated the numerous great art works with a lot of respect. Although the judges have now made their decision, the whole process took more time than we had expected and we therefore have to delay the announcement of the final decision to mid-April.
We're currently working at full speed to produce the board and the car in the winning design! All users will be informed via newsletter as soon as the pictures of the winner are online.
This much can be said: the decision was a though one! The judges had long discussions. The design that finally won the race especially convinced in the categories innovation and originality and deeply impressed with its unique style – something Marko Grilc and Ludschi have been stressing in the video tutorials.
We once again would like to apologize for the delay but hey - Rome wasn't built in a day! Considering all the effort you made, we thought that it's only fair to invest as much time as possible in the judging process and make every endeavour to ensure a worthy winner. Of course a lot of care is also being taken in the board and car production!
Please stay tuned…more from us coming soon! Your FDC Crew
03.03.08 Qualifications are over – these are the last 10 finalists
Everything has an end! The 3rd and last heat is over. The number of participants (1433 participants) and the fantastic designs of this competition exceeded our expectations. And they've got a lot of points and comments from you. On the final day of the competition some heavy cheating was going on. But we went through the logfiles to sort things out and made the necessary corrections. These are the actual 5 finalists via public online voting:
1. 'LIBERTY!!!' by luckystar (2167 Pts.) 2. 'Rainbow' by Goghie (1938 Pts.) 3. 'Board' by sunloving (1761 Pts.) 4. 'b_waal' by fa.tty_ (1705 Pts.) 5. 'treedom' by derjakob (1652 Pts.)
This time, our wildcard – experts come from Sweden. Joakim Knapp and Niklas Bergh are predestinated to separate the wheat from the chaff in this last heat. Their Stockholm based design studio Post Creative (link) has been generating great works for companies such as WESC, Nokia, Scott USA, SVT, Transition magazine, Vast Awards or Method magazine –just to mention a few of them. With graphic design as a spring board the two have been leaping into an indefinable sphere of projects ending up as anything from repeated patterns to motion graphics via animation or mutilated toys, treading carefully between the forces of aesthetics and purpose, history and invention, the daily dreary and euphoric strokes of genius.
Here are the 5 wildcard – finalists in no particular order:
- 'wall' by AsaDesign (link): "While seamingly random spattered paint would feel like a bore this creator has found his own way smearing it around. The, slightly tilted, tile grid highlights the beauty of the board’s shape and rings of a post modern Mondrian. The final execution and composition is spotless."
- 'FREE mind' by losinto (link): "Simplicity should never be under-estimated. The overall composition stands out and the board’s future rider will be spending his chair lift minutes forever trying to figure out the hidden message in these crooked illustrations." - 'frederico' by frederico (link): "This creator stuck to his idea and believed in it, never falling for slick effects. The shades of black hints perfectly a deepth and layers. The final composition is beautifully balanced."
- 'simple paint' by digiphal (link): "Remember when snowboarding was fun? Well it still is and this graphic explains why. Naive to the point of idiocy and then repeated. Also the first board graphic to incorporate the term “fatal bug”. Pure joy."
- 'mechanism' by ghicap (link): "This machine will not communicate, as Radiohead put it. Anything that is manic draws an eye and this dystopic mechanism calls for exploration. One idea, one way — no compromises."
And now comes the most exciting part: The Finals
The following judges will decide upon the winner of the competition:
- Gigi Rüf (Burton, pro rider) - Marko Grilc (Burton, pro rider) - Brendan Murphey (Burton, product manager board graphics) - Patrick Schrömbgens (Suzuki, manager european brand center) - Ludschi (Pirate Movie Production, art director) - Danny Burrows (Onboard Magazine, editor in chief ) - Tobias Allanson (Modart Magazine, editor in chief )
As soon as the decision is final, car and board will be produced and off we’ll go to award our winner! A detailed report will follow at the end of March. Just visit the website from time to time to be up to date. Of course we’ll announce the final result in a newsletter too!
A big shout out to all the participants! Thx for your wicked designs ... they make the Freeride Design Competition Qualifications awesome!!! Your FDC crew
Joakim Knapp and Niklas Bergh from Post Creative
14.02.08 Talks with a judge
We talked to Danny Burrows, chief editor of Onboard magazine and FDC judge, and learned several things that might be of great interest to you …
Q: What should we know about Danny Burrows and snowboarding? Danny: I began snowboarding on the dryslopes of London with some amazing friends back in the 90s having cut my teeth on boards of the surfing persuasion during my youth As a freelance writer I was press-ganged into writing for Onboard from about issue 2. I have been the ed in chief of Onboard magazine for seven years, a job which I love because of the people I work with and the obvious advantage of calling the mountains my office.
Q: What’s your philosophy on board design? Board design is the icing on the cake, the sweetness on what essentially is a high-tech instrument of joy. Although choosing a board should depend on its relevance to your style of riding and your personal build it is the graphics that seal the deal.
Q: What are your judging criteria? What are the details that count when it comes to choosing the winning design? First and foremost a board graphics should complement the profile of the deck - this is a very unique and tricky canvas on which to work. Originality of design and a fresh approach will also score highly with the judges.
Danny Burrows
04.02.08 We can announce 10 further finalists
Another great heat came to an end with many more phat designs – namely 983 submitted designs.
According public online voting the following 5 designs made it to the finals:
1. 'hoyu_skull' by hoyu_david (2702 Pts.) 2. 'Fight to the Top' by Yanger (2634 Pts.) 3. 'Stinger' by Goghie (2329 Pts.) 4. 'girlfriend' by kikeperales (2169 Pts.) 5. '±²' by x_creative±² (1844 Pts.)
New in this round are the 5 wildcards, which we already announced in our last newsletter. In this context, we were looking for the right man to deal with the wildcards. We wanted to keep this contest at a high level and therefore invited none other than Dean ‘Blotto’ Gray to be our wildcard man. Blotto has been documenting the best riders in snowboarding and the heart of the sport’s culture for years. Currently he is Burton’s Principle Photographer. In 300 days of traveling per year with one of the top contemporary crews in the game, he has definitely witnessed some of the finest hours of snowboarding. When the magazines are recycled, the catalogues tossed away and the web sites redesigned, Blotto’s images will remain and stand the test of time.
And here is his choice including some comments:
- 'tsunami' by hanzfogl (link): "It's great to see the classic the wave set applied to a snowboard." - 'Those hills' by ladikzoli (link): "The depth of the colors and painting is awesome." - 'trrrr' by maximus (link): "Skier Killer, RIGHT ON !!!" - 'board-mixu' by capsula (link): "Straight up dope." - 'monkey business' by -dayo- (link): "This board makes you think about life."
A great second heat is over, but all good things come in threes!
So be prepared for Heat 3! The final heat starts on 1 February 2008 and ends on 29 February 2008. In the first week of March a jury will decide the final winner of the competition. Please remember: Even if your designs already participated in Heat 2, you have to submit it again in Heat 3, because it won’t automatically be taken to the next heat.
Now show us some more! We can’t wait to see what the next heat will put forth!
Your FDC crew
Dean 'Blotto' Gray gives out some wildcards
11.01.08 Winner of "Ticket to BEO 2008"
Congratulations to Max & Tanja from Augsburg who will be traveling to Laax and stay there from January 16-19 to visit the BEO 2008!
Max & Tanja were the lucky winners of a competition organized by Suzuki Swift Sport and MTV. They get to be part of Europe's biggest snowboard event!
... sleeping at the riders palace in Laax, getting free tickets to ride, checking out the contest, visiting the concerts and many other things.
If you're interested in what Max & Tanja are up to during their stays go and check out the MySpace website on:
01.01.08 An overwhelming first heat is done – get ready for your next chance!
We’re overwhelmed by the high interest in the competition and the high quality of your designs. Some 882 designs were submitted! When looking at the votings and the comments, one can’t help but notice that you’re really motivated! Cheating demands just punishment: In our last newsletter we told you that we would find a way to deal with the cheaters – and we did, so things could get back to normal.
In the first heat the following 5 designs made it to the finals:
1. "Svidetel" by MissingThing (2174 Pts.)
2. "mammoth" by Goghie (2035 Pts.)
3. "wooden-woo" by palomon (1784 Pts.)
4. "cat and a hat" by priitpärle (1753 Pts.)
5. "dream" by kikeperales (1696 Pts.)
Outlook on heat 2:
The next heat starts on 1 January 2008.
Caution: No board design will automatically be taken to the next heat! ( Tip: Although you can upload the design you submitted in Heat 1, you should consider improving it! Surf the gallery for a little inspiration – of course not for copying purposes!)
Heat 2 ends on 31 January 2008 and is then followed by heat 3 (last heat).
We’d be more than happy to see so many participants and good designs again. We hope that you’ll be voting and commenting even more than you already did in Heat 1 (only cheat less ;-)!
Competition format update from heat 2 onwards – design expert wildcards:
Some people stated they were missing „true board designs“ – something that this competition is all about. A lot of discussion was going on about the issue (check out the comments and forum discussions for more). To us from Freeride Design Competiton Crew, it was clear that we would have to work something out. In the discussion we announced to introduce some changes to the competition. And here they are:
In each of the 2 upcoming heats, a design expert will give wildcards to 5 designs in addition to the 5 designs the public voting generated. This means that at the end of a heat there will be 10 instead of originally 5 finalists. Consequently, 25 designs will make it to the finals at the end of the competition (3 x 5 public voting + 2 x 5 expert wildcards). Of course the expert, who hands out the wildcards, won’t be among the judges choosing the final winner of the competition. Watch out our news for details on the design expert for heat 2.
We are looking forward to the next heat and the forthcoming designs!!!
Happy new year & a great next heat, Freeride Design Competition Crew
