Making a Custom Bouldering Crash Pad
We feel it's important to be nimble, clever, and crafty.
As a rock climbing start-up ran by only two brothers, these are definitely some of the top traits that we believe give us an advantage over the tenured giants of the climbing gear world.
It’s a pretty rad feeling when anyone reaches out after somehow hearing about the small climbing company you built. When we get a kind message from a non-profit or a climbing organization looking for a contribution, you best believe we’re stoked to make something happen. We can typically always donate a chalk bag or a few bags of chalk, but when the opportunity allows, we love to get clever!
So, what do you do when one of your sponsored bouldering athletes reaches out to see if ZIGZAG could donate some climbing gear for the Western Massachusetts Climbers Coalition silent auction? You get crafty!
This was an auction, so our goal was to create something that would drive attention, and hopefully bring in some good money for an awesome climbing organization. Like so many others, they deserve it.
The WMCC is a volunteer led 501(c)(3) non-profit that puts in work to build inclusive relationships with diverse advocacy groups, state and local governments, landowners, and conservation groups to keep climbing areas open and accessible to climbers from all backgrounds, and to conserve the climbing environment in Western Massachusetts.
Within a few minutes of us being asked to contribute by Regina (Team ZIGZAG Athlete, WMCC Board Member, and our personal favorite 5ft climber - @shortpeoplebeta on Instagram), Lucas and I both knew this would be the perfect opportunity to create a unique bouldering crash pad. With the auction only 4 weeks away, we knew we had to move fast and be agile, as we didn’t even have the equipment to do the printing, much less a design.
After three days of research, we were proud owners of a high-quality transfer press. A great company purchase in our eyes, enabling us to customize all sorts of climbing gear.
Now we had to come up with a design...
The biggest opportunity was that the auction would be held online, meaning anybody in the US who saw the crash pad could bid on it. Importantly, this meant we could use our social media to drive attention. The challenge - it’s one thing to get someone to stop mid-Instagram death scroll for a like or comment, but it’s a whole other thing to get them interested enough to click through to your profile, and further click a link in your bio to a climbing organization auction website.
To make a win here, we needed to make something eye catching, provoking, and maybe a little shocking. It was almost comical how fast after saying these targeted qualities out loud, that Lucas came up with the “Explicit” crash pad concept.
The symbols used to warn movie viewers of their rating and music listeners of explicit content were absolutely perfect. This half-century old designs were literally made to be eye catching, and their rectangular shape couldn’t have been a better match for our rectangular LINK Crash Pads.
After a little word-smithing, the language on the soon-to-be crash pad designs matched the vibe we wanted and stoke we have for rock climbing! Now having a unique design for each LINK Crash Pads unit of this custom Double Set, it was time to print.
Thank goodness we produced plenty of small test prints to run trials on spare fabric, and further x2 of each final crash pad design, because we needed them. Getting the print procedures, heat settings, timing, and pressure of the press was much tougher than anticipated.
6 hours later, we had burnt through every test print we had, and it was “now or never” to make the final crash pad print. Just like sending your project on the final “one more go” of the day, we pulled it off.
(Co-Founder Lucas exhausted and thrilled the final prints worked!)
The “Explicit” Special Edition LINK Double Crash Pad set was beautiful as ever. One photoshoot and a few silly videos later, we were ready to get this pad on the WMCC’s auction site and start driving some hype!
The WMCC’s auction is live from February 22nd to March 1st. Through the link below you can bid on the Explicit Crash Pad as well as plenty other awesome items, all to help support an awesome rock climbing organization!
Links Below to Bid Now and Learn More
“Explicit” Special Edition LINK Crash Pad Set – WMCC Auction Page
