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Core77 - One Hour Design Competition: Skateboard Grip Tape Graphics

The industrial design blog site core77.com puts on One Hour Design Competitions every month. The purpose of these is quick ideation and illustration. The latest was a competition for laser cut skateboard grip tape.

Early on, there was some concern with how complicated the designs were becoming as they would be applied to the skateboard by hand. My goal was to utilize the technical capabilities of the laser cutter to cut intricate looking graphics while making the design simple enough to easily apply by hand.

The focus on trees and nature is a reference to the use of wood as the main skateboard material. Many other materials have been experimented with in skateboard design, but the natural beauty of wood makes it the ideal choice because of its light weight, flex characteristics, strength, durability, and looks.

This tree graphic was manipulated in Illustrator from a photograph. The result is actually two scenes. The first a single tall tree when viewed in portrait. The second is a landscape view of trees and bushes reflecting off of a lake. Although the graphic looks quite intricate, the grip tape is only cut into three pieces, making it easy to apply with some transfer tape.

This graphic is a close up view of naked tree branches. The grip tape is all one connected piece, therefore making it very easy to apply.

Neither of these concepts were picked as winners, but the contest was still enjoyable, and it only took me two hours!

Click here to view the core77 website.

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