How do you keep skateboarding alive after complete world destruction?

We prepared skaters for the end of the world this collaboration with Alien Workshop. To ensure that skateboarding lives on, our series of apocalypse-themed decks were locked up in doomsday-proof containers and enclosed with valuable survival tips. Five of these ‘recolonization kits’ were buried around the world, to be recovered by lucky scavengers on a global hunt for skateboard survival.

a super-natural PARTNERSHIP

Alien Workshop is an internationally known skateboard company with top riders and a reputation for great design. We've worked with them before, creating their website and online store. They’re one of the industry's most eccentric brands, built on imagination and originality. So when they came to us for deck illustration, it was the ultimate compliment.

a theme TO DIE FOR

We designed three decks for Kill Trend Continuum (KTC), a series that invites special guest artists to design boards. Since Alien Workshop thrives on conspiracy theories and supernatural phenomena—and with the 2012 Mayan apocalypse upon us—we made our whole theme around imagined doomsday scenarios. Our Skate Recolonization Kits (SRKs) outfitted apocalypse survivors with the necessary gear to keep skateboarding alive forever.

<h3>DEATH BY NATURAL DISASTER</h3><p>Worldwide pandemic and the earth’s imminent demise. Only the lucky remain after asteroids, volcanic eruption, and disease rampage the globe.</p> <h3>DEATH BY NUCLEAR FALLOUT</h3><p>Bomb detonation, radiation, and armored warfare. Survival means donning protective suits, gas masks, and explosion-proof elbow pads.</p> <h3>DEATH BY ALIEN INVASION</h3><p>Domination by extraterrestrials of superior intellect. Post-planetary descent, abductions, and mass slaughter. Only the strongest riders survive.</p>

DEATH BY NATURAL DISASTER

Worldwide pandemic and the earth’s imminent demise. Only the lucky remain after asteroids, volcanic eruption, and disease rampage the globe.

follow through ‘TIL THE END

We carried the theme throughout every last detail.

Rest assured, these kits will make it through any kind of domination, detonation, or epidemic. The steel canisters are sandblasted, torched, and stenciled, and contain secret extras like a propaganda guide titled ‘So, You're an Apocalypse Survivor.’ Shredded top-secret documents line the insides of each kit, and then we sealed them up with "Compromised if Broken" tags.

  • Packed with shredded classified documents

  • Wired shut with “Compromised if Broken” tags

  • Distressed canisters for that been-through-hell-and-back look

  • Propaganda leaflet for apocalypse survivors

  • Launch video contains game clues

  • Redacted letter with clues to buried kit coordinates

  • Geocache flag marks the spot

GLOBAL scavenger hunt

For a bit of pre-apocalyptic practice, we buried five canisters in discreet locations around the world for true believers to uncover. Players had to decode secret messages to find them. Clues were concealed in cryptic redacted letters, viral videos, and obscure photographs. Skaters across the globe scrambled to find the kits, and the lucky ones triumphantly documented their success with dirt-grubbed fingers and online posts.

CREATING A viral epidemic

To kick-off the hunt for buried boards, we created a video containing clues of the first kit’s whereabouts. It immediately registered on the skater radar, garnering over 100,000 views and a 35% traffic increase to Alien Workshop's website.

We also leaked a few kits to influential members of the press. Without a warning, sinister-looking canisters were sent to the doorsteps of Gizmodo, Uncrate, Buzzfeed, CoolHunting, and Laughing Squid. Affixed to each lid was a choppy redacted letter which looked like it was written with a typewriter in some dark bunker. We made sure the world was watching closely for every clue.

Additional Work

BONBRIGHT distributors

POWERING every connection

SONY action cam