The Winter Sale is almost over, everything is 20% off until Jan. 15th. Select styles are now 30% off until Jan. 15th as well and will be discontinued. If you’ve been eyeing them, this will be your last chance to get these designs (pictured above):London, Marina (Grass Green), Source (Red), Source (Blk), Workers (Gold/Red). Check it all out at the shop. Also, the snowboard giveaway is ending soon so don’t miss your chance to enter!

Just a quick note to let you know that the Northern Lights print is back in stock. It’s currently 20% off as part of the winter sale and purchasing one automatically enters you to win the ISO50 Forum snowboard. Check it out at The ISO50 Shop.

With all this talk of snowboards and all the new snow up in Tahoe, I thought it would be a good time to post about these Armada skis I did a couple years back that have just recently been released. In November of 2006, Armada asked me to design the 2009 AR6 line (there is a relatively long period that separates the design phase and end product in the production cycles of most snowboard / ski manufacturers). Based on the timeline and budget, we decided I’d deliver 2 reference designs which would be extrapolated by in-house designers to fill the 5 versions of the AR6 line. I believe Mackel Vaugn put together the final designs based on what I turned in. The top image (orange, very top) shows the early tests I showed Armada to illustrate what I was going for. Skis are an interesting form factor to design for; you have these two narrow canvases and you sort of have to choose whether to treat them as a whole or individually. Based on the very wide design of the AR6’s I decided to try and tie the two skis together to feel more like one large design across a canvas.

After some meetings with Armada about the tests I had sent in, we decided to stick with the basic forms for the final versions but bring up the overall color and variation of the designs. The results were the final two reference designs (directly above), I delivered the PSD files along with various image collateral and they worked those into final five ski designs. I’ve done a couple ski projects and all my snowboard projects this way. It’s an interesting process, handing off the design and later being surprised by what they end up looking like (the bottoms were a surprise too, only designed the tops). The whole thing reminds me of layer tennis, sort of like a design remix. You can see all the final versions of the AR6 at Armada’s site and you can see some in action in this video review. These are out now, you can check Armada’s dealer list if you want to pick up a pair. I did the 2010 AR6 line as well so you should start seeing those out next fall. Here’s Armada’s product video for the 2009 AR6:

Video Link

As some of you pointed out in comments and via emails, the ISO50 Shop was responding slowly. Apparently the US Postal Service server is having trouble and that is affecting our ability to calculate postage during the checkout process. Anyways, the issue has been resolved and to make up for it, discounted shipping is now in effect. Happy holidays!

The holidays are here again and so is the ISO50 Winter Sale. Everything at The ISO50 Shop is 20% off for a limited time. This includes the new “77″ shirts and thermal and all of the prints are back in stock and ready to go. The snowboard giveaway is still on too so if you were waiting on scoring some new gear, now is the time.. Head over to the ISO50 Shop!

I wasn’t sure if this new shirt and thermal were going to get printed before the new year, but we were able to get them out this week. The new Black on Black 50/50 American Apparel Tee (pictured above) and cotton AA Thermal are now available at The ISO50 Shop. These are going to drop in the ad on Monday so get them while they’re still around (as always, I’m posting them here on the blog a little early).

On a somewhat related note, I’ve always found it difficult to photograph black objects and this shirt was no different. The contrast between the paint and the shirt is a lot more subtle in real life (and the paint isn’t grey, it’s black), some more accurate pictures are here (taken by the guys at Merchline who have been shooting all the recent model shots for the ISO50 storefront). Apparently I need a gray card because I’m using the same lights as them: The Calumet Quattro (more on that later) and a tungsten Smith/Victor photo flood. The picture above was overexposed for effect, but even when I’m trying to be as color accurate as possible I’m still running into trouble. I was definitely happier with how these shots came out and it’s getting frustrating because I was using the same lighting setup, same exposure settings, and same room to shoot them. Does anybody out there know much about this phenomenon or how to correct it? Any advice would really be appreciated in the comments.

In other news, Alex brought by his Wacom Intuos 6×8 today. I really enjoyed working with it, I’ll be posting on that more tomorrow. Thanks again to everyone who took the time to respond to the Wacom: Which Size? post. It really helped a lot.

I designed the ROOST line of snowboards for Forum and will be giving one away this holiday season. Just purchase anything from the ISO50 Shop between now and January 31st and you’ll be entered to win. The board in question is the Forum ROOST Devun Walsh 161 pro model with all the upgrades. If you win and would prefer a women’s size you can trade it out for an ISO50-designed K2 Solace (women’s). You can also choose to have the board signed or unsigned. All the details are over here. Good luck!

There are 3 new T-Shirt designs now available at the ISO50 shop. “77″ Cream / Royal is printed on American Apparel 100% Cotton and comes in all Men’s and Women’s sizes. The two Tycho shirts are new typo / colorways of the original “Tycho Avian” shirts which have been out of print since last year. “Tycho Avian” Cream / Brown is printed on American Apparel 100% Cotton and “Tycho Avian” Black / Aqua-Grey is printed on American Apparel 50/50 Cotton/Poly. Each are available in all sizes, M/W. I’ll bee officially releasing these through the newsletter on Monday but I thought I’d post them up here so the blog readers could get a crack at them first. The product images at the shop page are temporary, I’ll try to get some close-ups and alternate angles posted up tomorrow. Enjoy!

On a side note, I can’t seem to get enough of Trade Gothic Bold Extended lately (the face used on the Tycho shirts above). I’m currently redesigning the interface of the shop and laid most of it out in TG with headers being Extended. For those in San Francisco: There’s an old California Savings (closed) on 16th & Mission (across from BART) with a very cool sign that looks a lot like TG Bold Ext. Has anyone seen that? Is it TG? It’s for sale so they’ll probably redo the exterior, I’ll try to walk over tomorrow and get a couple shots before that happens. Probably not a big rush though, 16th & Mission isn’t exactly hot property.

After an unplanned overnight stay in Atlanta, I’ve finally made it to Tampa for the Connext show tonight. Just a reminder, if you’re planning on coming out the show is from 5:00-10:30PM at Coachman Park. I’ll go on around 9PM, all the details are here. See you out there.

I’ll be playing a live Tycho set and doing ISO50 visuals this Saturday (Nov.1) in Clearwater, FL for The Connext Project show in Coachman Park. There will also be an ISO50 booth with posters, shirts, CDs, etc. The show starts at 5PM and from what I’ve heard I go on around 9PM. Sorry for the late notice on this, but hopefully you can recover from your Halloween hangover and make it out for the show. See you all out there…

Tycho / ISO50 LIVE @ Connext Project 2008
When: Saturday, November 1st, 2008 @ 5PM
Where: Coachman Park - 301 Drew St. Clearwater, FL 33756 Directions
Admission: ALL AGES - $5 - Buy Tickets

This event is rain or shine.
No food or drink except sealed bottles of water.
Children 5 and under are free.

And here’s the TV spot for the show: