1HDC 09.01 - Discussion Forum

I dig benny’s male and female idea, i like the tux.

Hey all,
Great discussion, and there are some really impressive designs so early on. I just wanted to share my ideas and advice on this subject, as I have been an avid skateboarder for many years, and have hand cut many grip tape graphics by hand.

I have found that grip tape is some of the stickiest stuff out there, and when designing graphics, don’t worry about small pieces of tape falling or rubbing off, because they won’t.

That said, this is much like cutting vinyl graphics, so the weeding is the hardest and most time consuming part. When designing any stencil like this, you should be conscious of how many pieces of material there are. If you can connect the different pieces grip tape with solid lines or amalgamate the pieces somehow, it really helps. But at the same time, don’t compromise the graphics just to make it easier to apply.

The expressed concern on how to apply the more complicated designs onto the long-board makes me wonder why to create a competition where the designs will be laser cut, as this has the distinct advantage of being able to easily cut intricate graphics. But anyways, I love the competition, and will be submitting many I hope. Thanks!

-Robot.Ink.

Richard: Ce n’est pas une longboard :wink:

Magritte style :slight_smile: Did I get the french right? wasn’t sure if a longboard was a “un” or “une”, …

R

Richard: CORE77 08 BUSTIN, shouldn’t that be 09? :wink: You beat me to the barcode theme, was thinking about it all day during work! Need to move fast on this comp!

Your design with the coordinates is one of my favorites so far, along with benny’s tox and the philly blunt.

I’ve been chatting with Admin and here’s a couple things to keep in mind:

Branding is NOT mandatory. Feel free to keep any/all branding out of this competition.

Fine details are an issue from the perspective of quality of final product. At the end of the day, emphasis should be placed on graphic quality with an understanding that small details may lower your chances for winning.

Keep them coming, this is fun to watch!

Longboard is an anglicism, so it doesn’t matter if it is male of female.

The correct term for skateboard is une planche à roulettes.

oops. fixed that. thanks.

R

I think my fave so far is Hyma-Time’s evolution. I think Richard’s latest entry also catches the spirit of skateboarding very well.

I really feel sorry for IP and whoever else has to judge this. I don’t think I could only pick three, and we’re just starting!

Oner

can we get some more clarification on the rules and those questions being asked-

  1. are the small bits OK? ie. how is it layed down?
  2. are grabbing graphics from the web OK? (it seems some are not 100% original graphics)
  3. what’s the deal with the “clear” griptape? is it really another choice available, as some options show, or clear is just meant to represent the negative space?

just want to clear things up (no pun intended) so everyone can do the best possible.

this one is fun!

R

Richard,
I can’t give you a definitive answer on #3 but from my experience clear grip is not completely see through. If you check the bustin website and click on “the idea” link and then click on the year 2005… and then click on the number 3 on the left a pic will appear with some boards. The one in the middle seems to have “clear” grip tape on it, which actually is a bit milky.

Anyway, IP this contest is fire!

Reading over the forum here i feel that i can throw my two cents in as a longboarder with clear grip tape, that it is only clear in the sense that color shows through. It is much like the type of glass that is used for a screen in showers or architecturally to provide privacy without sacrificing a light barrier. So a wood grain will not be visible, just the tone of the wood. Additionally clear grip tape shows wear much more than black due to the contrast of the clear tape and the foreign material buildup ( i.e.: dirt, spilled coffee, paint, or blood). I hope that helps people formulate their designs.

thanks for the clarification in regard to the clear tape (and the positive comments :wink: ) I’ve updated my designs to reflect clear tape.

I’d also like to know about the designs that seem to be vector art pulled from the web, or livetraced and positioned? I don’t think that it should be disallowed, but a little declaration by the designer that they used found work (like richard mentioned with the t-shirt design) would be good form. Regardless, it’s not too hard to tell what is original and what is sourced.

richard: love the “tweak it” design. I want that shirt.

I’m not a skateboarder, but I was doing some image research on boards with clear grip tape and I found this picture where the wood grain is pretty visible. I’m sure it depends on the visibility of the actual grain itself, but thought I’d share. [/img][/url]

Longboard details can be found at: http://www.fuel-fire.se/view_product.php?ID=245
(the “Padang”)
08052711tuesday48p5270030.jpg

New Addition to my top favs: ADD’s vibrations. I was fooling around with a similar concept last night, but couldn’t get it right. That one is spot on.

We knew there would be a lot of interest in this one, but wow…21 pages of entries with 2 weeks left is pretty mind blowing. We are loving the diversity of thoughts and images that are going into this month’s competition. Due to the overwhelming number of entries we thought it would be prudent to let people know a few things that may be able direct the last two weeks worth of entries a bit:

The winner’s board is going to be assembled by hand. Wee tiny little pieces will be difficult to place accurately. This will be considered in judging.

While we fully understand that skating and grip tape application is about self-expression, one thing is becoming apparent in the discussions amongst the judges - there is an affinity towards “custom” artwork.

What I am getting at is that we are looking for something that is your creation. We would like to see more work that is less a screen grab of something off the net and more of something straight from your mind. Spend an hour to design your board, not 10 minutes surfing the web looking for a cool photo to repurpose onto a board.

I definitely don’t want to stem the freedom of expression on this one. I am wanting to let everyone know what is going to give you the best opportunity to win.

thanks for the clarifications, IP.

Can you just please clarify the “clear grip tape thing”. I know what clear grip tape looks like, but it’s not 100% clear from the OP, if we can use BOTH clear and black griptape, or if the clear referred to only means areas where there is no griptape.

Thanks, and great job assembling this one… perfect combo of fun, something out of the ordinary, an a great prize!

As well, perhaps it might helps if you could clarify the fabrication process of this…how small is too small for little bits? Does the griptape come lasercut in all one sheet where the application has to be done by hand/eye? Are there issues with registration, and things lining up (ie. if you had two skinny stripes that had to parallel, this might be tricky even if the parts weren’t too small)? Can they not use some sort of top adhesive layer over the griptape to help application as per the process of laying down vinyl graphics?

Just trying to get more info so we can have the most creative (yet still feasible) graphics possible.

Thanks,

R

Yes, thank you for this clarification almost 2 weeks after the start of this competition. Jeez…

I just went through the ‘submission’ forum to delete my posts where I used internet sources. It easily took me about a half hour per submission regardless of whether I sourced something from the internet or had it birthed from my head.

R does have some of the same questions I have…

I worked in a sign shop where vinyl artwork used for painting masks were cut with a bladed printer. The sheet of vinyl with the cut artwork was still intact as the blade only cut to a certain depth. A transfer sheet was then placed over the artwork so that the unneeded areas (weeding) could be removed prior to placing the adhesive side of the artwork to the surface to be painted. The transfer sheet helped to maintain the registration and integrity of the artwork. I was curious to know more details about the griptape process to administer the cut artwork to the wood…I’m only assuming it’s quite similar. But you know what happens I assume…

I look forward to how this will change things…of course, some entries have totally not followed the constraints at all so I can only wonder that some people will only disregard this update if they don’t care to read the ‘discussion’ forum.

No sweat though, still a good outlet for me.

The irony is that I was just looking to buy a BMW Streetcarver right before this competition went live. I’d much rather have something I designed versus that skateboard…so you definitely deserve kudos on the Bustin sponsorship!

Okay, back to the vector drawing board…

pee sout

I figured I’d post some images I found while cruising the interweb of cut grip tape. Some of them were mentioned as being ‘laser cut’, others appear to have been hand done. Though it does show that the grip tape itself seems to be pretty resilient if cut into semi-intricate shapes. There’s some rad submissions, I cant believe there are 23 pages so far.