It may be spring and windy weather in the foothills west of Denver, but at Warren Tech, they’re already preparing for next winter. This time, providing graphic design students with real-time practical experience in the form of snowboards.
Clara Ohlsen, a Warren Tech sophomore, is familiar with the competition, having been named a finalist last year.
“I took some time to learn how to actually make it the way I wanted to, but I’m really proud of how it turned out,” she said.
The contest involves Never Summer Industries, a local snowboard company, and Warren Tech. Students are given the chance to, in essence, design the art for a snowboard. Eighty students submit designs and explanations for the inspiration and 20 are selected. That group then presents their design and ideas to a panel of judges that work at Never Summer full time.
Of those 20, 10 are picked and get to see their artwork come to life on actual boards.
“You get two months to work on a design and that’s super cool,” Ohlsen said. “You start with a sketching process that you go through with your instructors, and then you make your design.”
While a career as a snowboard designer may be nothing but a pipe dream to teenagers, they get a chance to live that experience through the contest every school year.
“It would be amazing if I got to do that,” Ohlsen said when asked if it would be a dream career, “And I’ve gotten to do it twice, and that’s pretty cool so far!”
These types of experiences and real-world applications give Warren Tech students an active portfolio, which has resulted in new opportunities for people like Clara.
“I actually got an internship through the Arvada Center through my classes at Warren Tech this year,” she added.
The competition has been happening for 12 years at Warren Tech as Vince Sanders, the Chairman of the Board at Never Summer, got together to try and give students something fun to work on.
While their boards aren’t commercially sellable by the company, the top pick every year gets a couple of extra boards made by Never Summer to be auctioned off by Warren Tech for fundraising or other uses.
When people come to tour the snowboard factory line, he told CBS Colorado, he’ll sometimes be asked about designs that belong to students and if they’re available to purchase.
“We are using different artists each year, so maybe at some point one of these Warren Tech students will be a featured artist that we can work with,” he said.
