What major is needed if I wanted to work for a snowboarding company?

Question

I want to work for a company like Burton or DC designing shirts or snowboards. What would be the best major for this? Thanks.

Answer 1

I would reccomend having a skill that would benefit the company. My opinion is It really depends on what part of a company you would like to work for(graphic design,  that person that comes up with diff. constructions. Ex. Lib Tech came up with Magne-traction,  banana technology, ect.) I dont exactly know all the jobs there are in a company.

Answer 2

I wouldn't focus on a college education since it won't show off your portfolio or your skills.

Focus on the following two things:

1.) Building a portfolio of what you can do. Whether it's hand-drawn designs or digital creations, they are going to want to see that you know art inside and out and that you are a creative individual. Don't mock or copy other designs, try to imagine and come up with your own styles.

2.) Focus on getting certifications from Adobe and other companies that build and release 2D and 3D design programs such as Illustrator, Photoshop, Fireworks, Maya/3DSMax, PaintShopPro, and any font-creation applications you can find.

Answer 3

Building a solid career in designing apparel would be the way to go if you want to get into designing clothes. I read the job postings for several outdoor clothing manufacturers quite often (along with all the other jobs) and the big name companies want experience. They don't necessarily care if you have designed jackets before, what they want to see is experience working in the apparel industry. A portfolio of work is a great thing to have as well, but they want someone who has experience dealing with deadlines, cost management, materials knowledge, and how to design something that can be mass produced by a Vietnamese clothing mill for $5 and sold for $250. There is nothing involved in designing a T-shirt except the graphics.

Snowboard design is another story all together. Graphic artists are a dime-a-dozen. Scotty Bob skis just ran a contest open to the public to design graphics for their new skis and G3 skis simply takes thier graphics from stock photos on Getty Images. Snowboard companies already have a bunch of people pawing at the ground for thier design to make it to the stores. All it takes is a submission of your graphics to the company and then it helps to know someone who works in their graphics department or one of the corporate big-wigs. They literally get thousands of design ideas a year and only a few are ever selected from the general public's submissions.

Designing the actual snowboards is a whole other ball game. Engineers with backgrounds in polymers, metals engineering, and physics do that stuff. If you go that route, you have a better shot at getting a job with a board company than you do as a graphic artists.

Funny thing about sport companies is that it's a lot easier to teach a designer how to snowboard than it is to teach a snowboarder how to design things.

Samuel Adams teaches all of its employees how to brew beer, but it doesn't teach all of its brewers how to do the accounting or marketing...same concept is true with outdoor companies.

Good Luck!

Answer 4

I would recommend getting into graphic design and business.  What can't hurt is going to their sites and checking out any job postings.  

Ex: Burton's print designer postions require communications knowledge and a portfolio.  So an advertising degree with a graphic arts minor would probably be what they are looking for.