Approach: After reading the design brief provided by Argent and being both inspired and excited by what they wanted ("As opposed to our other designs that are clean, conservative and created to appeal to a wide market, this design needs to speak to aggressive skiers and represent the true wild nature of this ski. Remember: honey badger don't give a damn."), I submitted a few concept designs to Argent so we could suss out an art direction together.

Once Argent saw the initial concepts, we went through several iterations of the ski layout, the honey badger character, and the elements we wanted to tie in (snakes, bees, logos, etc).

...getting closer...

Finally we landed on a honey badger design that we all agreed was the one. He was a badass (per the design brief), there were bees, there were cobras, and most importantly he definitely didn't give a damn. We then spent the next phase getting the layout (and bases!) exactly right.

*drumroll* the final design!

Even more exciting was eventually getting to see the Badgers in action!

Eventually I'll write up a sequel case study on The Badger's sister ski — The Gnar-whals! In the meantime you can check out those topsheets here.