Interview by Jeff Carvalho and Frank the Butcher.
Agreed.
GD - Its was me and a small group of riders looking to do something different... we had a band of misfits kids who had all of their odd thing going but it worked as a team... and thats what's created it. It was a true collaboration of a bunch of riders and myself doing something... and having fun doing it. The beauty is Jake gave us the freedom... to create cool shit.
OThe stuff that excites [us] the most about Burton and specifically the Idiom [line] is that I know the guy working on this was thinking like I do... was as thinking about something else besides that bottom line. You run into the problem of the homogeny with other active sports lines where they're not taking as much risk.
GD - For sure.
Thats the one thing [we] love about Burton.
GD - To be honest. I love working on everything but thats what I love working on the most; where we have total creative freedom. Like I said, the best thing for me is when you see a team rider or a kid wearing the jacket and their psyched to have it. Thats the most satisfying part of the job. I dont expect everyone to get everything we do but thats what makes the job really fun... about working for Burton and having the freedom for the powers that be... that let me do what I want to do... and let the cards fall where they may.
I've messed up more than a few times... and you learn from those. But you grow as a designer. And of course i want to make stuff thats commercially viable because I want to see people happy to wear it...
Is that the mentality when it comes to Idiom itself. Having something so premium and designed a certain way that it goes over people's heads?
GD - Idiom came about with a guy named Hiroki Nakamura who was marketing for us over in Japan... and we got to be really tight. And it was simpler sort of mentality to what ANALOG was doing, but in different respect we wanted to created something ... we coined "functional minimalism".. taking that real tech aesthetic and adding the street vibe to it and in a very Japanese way... very understated and do something completely unique.
We all loved riding [Greg,Hiroki,Hiroshi] but wanted to do something a little more sophisticated. ANALOG was definitely more a useful tip and we wanted Idiom to be on a more sophisticated tip. I have to say, Idiom over the last few years shows some of my design aesthetic... which is true functionality with some real style to it.
Its really evolved and we develop a new theme year to year. Sometimes the most difficult things to design are the things that seem the simplest. Japanese have always been great paying attention to detail... and thats always been the fundamental aspect of Idiom.. really paying attention to those small details. Its good to see more people get it these days [Stateside] and can appreciate what we're trying to do with the line.
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