Most of us are familiar with the feeling of walking into a shop and seeing the colorful array of skis and snowboards lining the wall — some with sleek minimalist designs and others with intricate graphics. No matter the visual, a lot of work and time has gone into the design of these pieces.

In Colorado, we are lucky to have many high quality ski and snowboard companies that originate locally. When investigating the graphics behind skis and snowboards created here, two brands stood out: ROMP Skis out of Crested Butte and Weston Backcountry originally out of Minturn, but now located in Denver.

ROMP Skis. Photo courtesy of Chris Hanna.

ROMP Skis is owned by New Hampshire-born brothers Caleb and Morgan Weinberg. The Weinberg brothers made their move to the snowy mountains of Colorado back in the 1990s in search of deep powder and happened to make their way into the ski industry. Spoke+Blossom had the privilege of sitting down with Morgan Weinberg to discuss the brand as a whole and dive into the detailed graphics they provide for their customers.

“Since we are often working with custom skis, we are less worried about brand identity but, rather, have graphics that fit what people want,” Weinberg says. “We really give our designers a lot of room to do what inspires them and what’s interesting to them.”

The team at ROMP prides themselves on their unique and diverse range of graphics and styles, as well as their custom projects, which has motivated them to work with a variety of designers over the years. Their current designer is Chris Hanna; you may know Hanna as the co-owner of Crested Butte Publishing and Creative. With a strong background in graphic design, Weinberg believes Hanna is the perfect person for the job, taking inspiration from everything around him — even the scalloped design of a Kleenex box or the haphazard arrangement of bumper stickers in front of him as he drives through town.

From private pilots who want their aviation background represented on the sticks that make them airborne on snow to llama-loving shredders who want nothing more than to see their favorite animal on their skis, Hanna has done it all.

Hanna not only works on the custom graphics for ROMP but also contributes to the batch of designs available to the general public. He takes inspiration from the skater days of his youth, the smooth organic lines from the Colorado landscape and everything in between. Skiing is a sport that fits a wide variety of people and, therefore, a wide variety of visual interests.

“It’s something that takes me a long time, putting down my thoughts and coming back. I try to make each ski its own theme and own individual look,” he explains. “It’s super rewarding, and because ROMP is local, I’ll be skiing with my wife and daughter, and look over, and ‘boom!’ I designed those skis in the lift line next to me!

The passion that goes into the work produced by ROMP is something that is clear for Weston Backcountry, as well. Though Weston produces high-quality skis, snowboards are where it all began for them in the fall of 2012 in a small Minturn warehouse.

Weston Backcountry. Photo by Carly Finke.

“From the very beginning, backcountry has been in our roots, and that is where we’ve stayed. Splitboards have been our number one product from the get-go. We have branched out and now look at snowboards and skis with the goal of servicing the whole backcountry community,” says Sean Eno, director of marketing for Weston.

In 2017, Weston switched ownership into the hands of Leo Tsuo, an original employee of the company. As they worked tirelessly to earn their spot in the game, the Weston crew moved out of their Minturn studio and into a tiny house built on a 25-foot trailer. The crew took their mobile showroom on the go and traveled around the U.S. for two months, allowing them to branch out and build backcountry stoke everywhere they went.

“It was a really cool tool that kind of showcased our dirtbag roots in the best way,” explains Eno with a big smile on his face. “We were doing it more out of the passion than the paycheck, and it kind of took off from there. We started winning a lot of awards at the same time.”
After Weston started to gain traction, they wanted to really ramp up their credibility by switching their production to a GP87 factory in China, further elevating the quality of their product.

With this season being their 10-year anniversary, the Weston crew knew they needed to do something big with this year's graphics. For the last three years, they have been dialing in the Mission Series with artists Vernan Kee and Jessa Gilbert.

Vernan Kee is a Diné (Navajo) Indigenous creator who worked alongside the Weston team to design a beautiful graphic inspired by the Red Tail Hawk flying against a blue sky.

“We’ve always been super stoked on traditional Indigenous designs. We’ve done graphics inspired by those in the past but have never been done by a traditional artist. This year we wanted to do it fully right,” states Eno.

Not only is Weston working alongside Kee but with Smartwool as well to create a stunning set of graphics for boards, skis and socks. These three forces are working in collaboration with the National Forest Foundation to give back to the Wood for Life Project, a forest restoration initiative focused on removing deadfall wood from the forest to help it thrive. “Through this program, they take that wood, put it on semis and truck it into the Diné reservations. It’s used on those reservations for things like heating and cooking,” explains Eno.

Kee decided on the Wood for Life campaign as it is something near and dear to him. Kee personally fills up his pickup truck with wood and delivers it to the elders on the reservation, so it only made sense to do something that aligns so strongly. This highlights that yes, these reservations are very modern in some ways, but that sometimes they do lack necessary resources.

Jessa Gilbert is a British Columbia-based artist who designed the graphics behind the Revel, Weston’s first women’s specific, swallowtail shaped board. Gilbert’s work is largely inspired by her time spent slaying pow in Rishiri, Japan and working as a backcountry guide in British Columbia. Gilbert’s artwork heavily reflects the human experience with wilderness. She highlights elements of play and exploration that keep us all returning to the wild to recreate.

Though Weston believes their boards are for anyone and not truly gender-specific, it’s a big step in their mission of inclusivity to represent female rippers in the way the Revel does.
Weston and Gilbert are working with CAPOW Canadian Powder Guiding to set up eight individuals with the opportunity to learn about safe access to the outdoors with the proceeds of this collection. At their core, Weston is about education in the backcountry and with Gilbert’s roots being so closely tied to guiding in British Columbia, the synergy was undeniable.

Whether you ride sticks or rip a board, it’s all about the joy of floating through powder with beautiful art under your feet and Mother Nature’s best work surrounding you. If this is the season you want to invest in a new setup, consider ROMP Skis or Weston Backcountry as a top contender — if not for their graphics, then for the passion and stoke the brands equally represent.

Originally published in the Winter 2022-23 issue of Spoke+Blossom.

Art Under Your Feet: The Graphics Behind Colorado-Based Skis + Snowboards