Present

The Volume One looks in line with some of the most exciting and popular shapes that we’re seeing more and more of these days. Why did you opt for this shape and profile for the first one?

I wanted a fun riding shape that would work for the terrain and snow we have here, but at the same time would work for European conditions too. If we’d focused on a deep pow snowboard first up I think we’d have limited ourselves to a narrow field of riders so I think the Volume One as our flagship shape embodies the type of riding that Island Snowboards is all about. It’s the type of board I wanted to ride. Shred pow, carve groomers, pop side hits and go fast. The spec is set up for this sidecut, flex, etc.

“I wanted a fun riding shape that would work for the terrain and snow we have here, but at the same time would work for European conditions too”

Tell us a bit about the process of this creating this board – from concept to completion. Was it sketched out on paper hundreds of times before it was ever built, proto-typed for several seasons, constantly tweaked, re-designed and overhauled? How did you know when you had ‘the one’?

It’s a bit of a mix of the tech for the geometry of dimensions and sidecuts mixed with the artistic side of sketching out nose and tail aesthetics. For me, the area between contact points has a lot to do with numbers and messing around with a CAD program, but the nose and tail shapes all sketched out on paper over and over to see how the whole thing fits together. Getting the camber and flex profiles for sure took a bit of testing to get right and I think you can always tweak these combinations which make it so interesting. It’s been 4 or 5 years of prototyping and testing to get to where I’m really happy with the version in production.

I know that John was riding a prototype in Tignes a couple springs back and rode some bigger alpine lines and even competed in a banked slalom with it. I hear you’ve had the ‘Will Hughes Seal of Approval’ too! What kind of feedback have you had from people on how the Volume One snowboard is so far? 

The feedback we’ve had has been overwhelmingly positive, as much as we tried to get people we know and trust to give us constructive criticism! I’ve had super detailed reviews from experienced riders like Will Hughes and Neil McNair, to “yeah, it’s rad” from others. I gave a board to Hamish Duncan to test and didn’t get it back for the 3 weeks he was here.

I hiked Mt. Yotei with my brother John, Will and Hamish and to see them all grab a Volume One and ride a dream line in perfect conditions was rad. Plus the feedback on how well it rode in various conditions in the Alps was great to hear – It’s the only board John has ridden in Europe for the last few winters!

I think it’s a shape that has a wide appeal and is really easy to understand right away. We want people to remember that snowboarding is fun so it’s great to hear that people are really getting riding the Volume One.

The wood cores you guys use sound super interesting – how did you come to source these materials and why have chosen them for the construction. 

I was using poplar to start with as a bit of a benchmark since most snowboard brands use this in their cores. Then we worked with local timber suppliers to find Japanese grown wood that had the same strength and flex characteristics and discovered Honoki which is ideal for the cores and Tamo for the stringers which are both grown here on Hokkaido.

I made a stack of cores from it, built a run of boards and they performed even better than the poplar cores used previously. We now work closely with a local timber yard and handpick every length of wood, so we can guarantee the quality and consistency of every core.

“The rice bag sleeves are one small example of something that seemed like a great way to avoid plastic packaging and are something that is widely available here to re-purpose and give second life to”

Using native Japanese materials seems to be at the heart of Island’s ethos – even down to the recycled rice bags you use as board sleeves. Was this a core part of the brand you wanted to create? Why?

Yeah for sure. The rice bag sleeves are one small example of something that seemed like a great way to avoid plastic packaging and are something that is widely available here to re-purpose and give second life to. Sustainability is important to us so if we can source great quality and local materials to use in any part of our business that in any way reduces our footprint then we do and will continue to.

When it comes to the graphics and colourways of free-carve and freeride inspired boards, simplicity seems to be the design of choice – a sort of ‘let the shape do the talking’ approach. What was the thought process behind the graphics for your snowboards?

We’ve kept the base clean with a die-cut logo only in the nose section. Solid black bases simply perform better, run faster.

Rather than a clean, graphic design look, we took inspiration more from art and music…we originally hand-painted the topsheet tail design, then transferred a version to silkscreen.

I think the simple one colour tail print pops out against the black topsheet and differentiates each size model in the range.

And the logo? I’ve just spent 20 minutes trying to sketch it on paper and it’s tripping me out! Is there a story behind it?

Haha, I’m glad you liked it and it tripped you out! I always liked the illusion of the Penrose triangle and I suppose this was a starting point for the logo. It includes an “I an S and L” from Island Snowboards and after loads of iterations with pencil and paper, this seemed to settle really well. After we put it into the base and launched the website a few people have also commented on it, and it pops in photos.