Snowriter Posted January 9, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 So what was our final tally?? LOL!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kipstar Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 forgot about.... Ogasawa which is japanese like moss. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Gilmour Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 The three brands that were developed for Blizzard were all manufactured by Blizzard...in Austria . The North American company head- Bruno was about as ADD as they come...he was hysterical and referred to me as "Mr. Lizard" Empire (and urban targeted snowboard brand- skate influenced- with low cost core) Bond (an inexpensive cap construction line targeted at big box stores like Costco, Sams club) Lizzard (A high end v-lam line made to sell to Blizzard skis regular distributors which featured special graphics- glow in the dark, lenticulars, and photothermic pignments in which the graphics changed according to temperature) The Lizard mascot had his tail curled to make the lower case script "b" and "lizzard" was in a completely different font and color and the idea was that skiers would read the brand as "Blizzard" while snowbaorders would read it as Lizzard. in tests it worked 100% of the time with skiers reading Blizzard and snowboarders who were unfamiliar with Blizzard skis as Lizzard. Oddly enough no one ever read it as "b Lizzard" which was our greatest fear. Blizzard hired me to come up with 3 brands in 1995. Kiki Raj did the graphics. The Austrians totally screwed up the implementation of the graphics (scale , colors , materials...everything... as could be expected) and the parent Co Blizzard went bankrupt and sold the graphics to another company- which later we saw at SIA- they never paid the royalties promised and were protected by bankruptcy. I still liked working with the Blizzard guys and later launched Red Bulls concept for Urban Waves with a former Blizzard employee. You can also add Gum snowboards- Madd snowboards -Madd Mike's (Mike Banker) own personal line of lower end boards and bindings (When I say lower end I mean...average). Winterstick really did die...and sold their name rights to another company. There was a line of boards which used Speed Racer graphics and outrageously built hookers to run their trade show booths... also gone... I don't remember the name of the company- except that the owner had it written in the girls contracts that if he dropped anything (intentionally or not) they had to pick it up within 5 seconds. and Yes.. OF COURSE....they were out of Southern california. Prop snow plane was another dead one.. one of the original asyms. I think someone may have gotten that already. I carried a lot of boutique brands - in the 1990s in Boston at Back Bay Bikes. Madd Mike's bitchin boards carried tons of odd brands like H-street. When we were at SIA in the 1990's I remember the brands exploding one year from 340 brands to over 850 brands... at that point I was glad Madd was a specialty performance company and not like the others... though Mike chose to give away about 60-80% of our freestyle decks that year to unknowns at resorts...unfortunately at a time when people would notice that impact the least. However, the freestyle boards "still life" 159cm and "love seat" 148 cm did ride well and won Editors choice from one mag and board of the year from another and ultimate equipment awards from the reviewers... and because they were not exotic to construct -unlike our alpine line- they were profitable and easy to shape twins...which is a shame that ..being the most profitable.. that Mike gave them all away... at a time when any decent rider any where could get "sponsored'- as the market was flooded with brands giving away free decks to make a splash. ________ Vaporite solo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snowriter Posted January 10, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2009 Winterstick really did die...and sold their name rights to another company. When we were at SIA in the 1990's I remember the brands exploding one year from 340 brands to over 850 brands... 1) The Winterstick brand has died more than a few deaths :) 2) Were there 850 snowboard manufacturers? Seriously? Jeez. Do you have anything that documents that? It would help for some research I'm doing. Thanks!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valsam Posted January 10, 2009 Report Share Posted January 10, 2009 M3 was only good when Epic/Yoshida owned them, but Sims decided to change their name instead of paying Epic & all the other suppliers so a lot of companies/factories had the final nail in the coffin. M3 is maybe actually owned technically in Taiwan, it's the same owner as the Sisco factory in China. I know there was a legal battle & Sisco won, then won again when M4 went to a legal battle.Elan/Artec, not sure how long that is going to last, Elan had 2 horrible years back to back, with a huge warranty issue this past year. Pale shut down this spring, Nidecker is selling off part of their factory, Burton can't even keep the factories they use in operation....more & more is going to China for most brands. F2 is still making boards in europe for 09/10...so that's some good news. Do you know anything about the PALE drive alpine line snowboards,are they good for carving?http://www.palesport.com/website/flash/info_graphics/boards_alpin/drive_detailed.jpg I had never heard of PALE boards and i found some here in Greece and they are pretty cheap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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