adaaron draplin

RBred from the loins of the proud Midwest, this little fucker was squeezed out in Detroit, in

the year 1973 to the proud parents of Jim and Lauren Draplin. Growing up on a steady stream of Legos, Star Wars, family trips, little sisters, summer beach fun, stitches, fall foliage, drawing, skateboarding and snowboarding, at 19 he moved west to Bend, Oregon to hit jumps "Out West." His career started with a snowboard graphic for Solid snowboards and took off like wildfire soon after. Everything from lettering cafe signs to drawing up logos to thinking up local advertising campaigns were manhandled under the ruse of the newly formed-and gigantically reckless-Draplindustries Design Co.After five winters out west, the kid sobered up and headed back to Minneapolis to finish up a high-falutin' design degree at the prestigious and painfully expensive Minneapolis College of Art and Design. During this time he polished up his design skills, learned how to weld and how to develop a photo in nasty chemicals. These were the salad days. He fell back in love with a strong Midwest that he once tried so hard to leave.In April 2000, much to the chagrin of his proud "Midwestern Roots," he accepted an ill-fated art director position with SNOWBOARDER magazine. He moved it all down to Shithole, Southern California-alongside some hot, caustic beach-and wrangled some 23 issues of the mag. He won "Art Director of the Year" for Primedia 2000, beating out such titles as Gun Dog, Cat Fancy and Teen. No other awards were bestowed in this period, and like he gives a rat's ass.Thankfully, in April 2002, the Cinco Design Office of Portland, Oregon called up and offered a Senior Designer gig which he

instantly accepted. He moved it all North to the land of rain and gloom and rolled up the sleeves to work on the Gravis, Helly Hansen and Nixon accounts.The Draplin Design Co. finally stepped out on its own four hairy feet in the fall of 2004. Some four year later, he's proud to report that he's managed to "keep everything out of the red." He rolls up his sleeves for Coal Headwear, the Union Binding Company, Snowboard Magazine, Field Notes memo books, Ride Snowboards, Forum Snowboards, Grenade Gloves, Chunklet Magazine, Cobra Dogs, Absinthe Films, NemoDesign, Gnu Snowboards, RVL7 Apparel, Burton Snowboards, K2 Snowboards, Bonfire Snowboarding Apparel, South American Snow Sessions, as well as all sorts of one-off logos, t-shirt graphics and what not.He owes it all to his parents, seriously.

EGaryNow, how this tales unfolds, goes something like this:

I had been wanting a dog for some time, and, had to sort of accept the waiting game, as, I didn't want to bring a little pooch into my world unless I was

absolutely sure he would be in good hands. This meant being financially stable (cash flow for dog food, toys and vet visits), having lots of time for the little

guy and having a place of my own for him to roam properly. So, after I bought the house, went out on my own working out of the basement, and, had enough

scratch in a coffee can buried in the backyard, I set out to rescue a little friend.Design-wise, the Dachshund did it for me. The coat, the color, and man, that

length. I used to live over on Hawthorne Street, not a block from it, and this gal would walk her little wiener dog by every now and again. I loved seeing it pound

down the sidewalk.In May of 2005, in the middle of a visit from the parents, I decided I was ready for the purchase. I did some research, poured over thousands of web photos and started the hunt around town. Mom, being the saavy navigator, located a

breeder in the far, outer reaches of Southeat Portland.Out we went, some miles away. I remember pulling up and hearing the barking

at the door of the place. This meant nothing to me at the time. We were greeted by a weary-lookin' mother, who invited us in, simultaneously corralling the herd

of barking Dachshunds.Gary was shuffled up to us, so small, so skiddish and not quite able to climb the

carpeted stairs like his parents and grandparents. I remember how small he was. And, keep in mind, his parents-in their fullgrown state-weren't all that big

anyway.I practiced holding him, asked some questions, met his family, and, the kids of

the house, all eight of them. Plus, mom was pregnant. Breeders, alright!The price was $350, and man, when thinking back to that fateful purchase,

money was no object at that point. I would've payed whatever they were asking. He was coming home with me at all costs. Spare no expense!

And with a couple signatures and an exchange of some cold hard cash, we were outta there.

I remember being kinda sad, thinking about how he'd never see his mom again. I felt like we were tearing them apart or something. Did he feel sad?

Dad drove back to the house. Mom guided from the passenger side. Gary and I got to know eachother in the back seat. He whined a bit, then rolled up like a

little cinnamon roll on my chest. We bonded all the way back to the pad.And that was it.

SProfessional Titles01. Junior Sasqualogist

02. Sole Proprietor, DDC03. Gocco Blackbelt

04. Breaker of Hearts05. Lover of All Things Bicentennial

06. Scrabble Blank Feeler07. Straight-Shootin’, Red-Blooded, Kicker of Many

Town’s Asses08. Guitar Strummer

09. Chain Link Carver10. Junior Noodler

11. Guardian of Gary12. Carnie

13. Desktop Publisher14. Chairlift Operator

15. Detector of Metallic Objects16. Strong Bloodline

17. Master Junker18. Philatelist

19. Record Collector20. Good Listener

21. Anachronism Detective

TLoose Aliases01. “DDC.” 02. “Draplindustries.” 03. “Draplin Industries.” (By those who can’t fucking read.)04. “Dickhead.” (…usually by Ryno, Minneapolis, Minn.)05. “Alpha Delta.” (…as in “A.D.” in some weird military speak.)06. “The Flesh Jackhammer.” (Just plain gross.)07. “Drap.” (High school era abbreviation we wish would die.)08. “//draplin” (How we sign off our emails.)09. “Dug.” (“That’s when a “Dude” and “Dawg” are hella tight.” -J2)10. “Dick Target.” (J2’s reference to my goatee.)11. “The Long Arm of Nothing.”12. “The Dark Cloud.” (Bend-era “too busy for anything” moniker.)13. “AJD.” (Figure it out.)14. “Ah-nee.” (Leah’s big brother pronunciation of “Aar-on.”)15. “Buzzbomb.” (As in, “Time for bed, buzzbomb.” From Dad, 1982.)

RThings We Love 1 . Mom. 2 . Dad. 3 . Leigh. 4 . Sister Sarah. 5 . Sister Leah. 6 . Little Gary. 7 . Big S the Passat. 8 . The DDC Factory Floor. 9 . 2946 NE 67th Avenue. 1 0 . Our roof. 1 1 . Our backyard. 1 2 . Fall foliage. 1 3 . The month of Octobrrr. 1 4 . Cool summer nights. 15. That Flat Midwest. 16. The Wet Northwest. 1 7 . Graphic design as a way to “Make An Honest Living.” 1 8 . Stayin’ outta the red. 1 9 . Acoustic guitars. 2 0 . Electric guitars.

2 1 . Walls of sound. 2 2 . The Open Road. 2 3 . Helvetica 55. 2 4 . Trade Gothic Condensed no.20. 2 5 . Futura Bold. 2 6 . Legos. 2 7 . Bad wildlife art. 2 8 . Thick paper with a good tooth to it. 2 9 . My beat-up Carhartt jacket. 3 0 . Levi 501s. 3 1 . Saucony Jazz kicks. 3 2 . Gold Toe socks. 33. A new pair of socks. 3 4 . Nixon watches. 3 5 . Being straight with Uncle Sam. 3 6 . Being a good citizen/being a bad citizen. 3 7 . Standing up to shit that, “Isn’t right.” 3 8 . The stars in the summer night sky. 39. A cold Coke. 4 0 . Vignelli oversize calendars. 4 1 . Compact discs. 4 2 . iTunes.

4 3 . iPods. 4 4 . Apple Products big, small, brilliant and absolutely crucial to our paltry existence. 4 5 . Books. 4 6 . Corner rounders. 4 7 . Flat files. 48. A disc on the player. 49. A stack of recently-purchased discs from the local record store. 5 0 . Checks showing up in the mail. 5 1 . M i d w e s t e r n accents. 5 2 . Girl hands. 5 3 . Clean sheets. 5 4 . Down comforters. 5 5 . Cold water. 5 6 . Hot water. 57. A hot shave. 5 8 . A tall glass of ice-cold water. 5 9 . Mom’s spaghetti. 6 0 . Dad’s “killer pizza.” 6 1 . Club sandwiches. 6 2 . The Ideal Diner in Minneapolis. 6 3 . The working man. 6 4 .

Untucked shirts. 6 5 . Autobiographical tattoos. 6 6 . Impko stickers. 6 7 . Cards of business. 6 8 . Cards kits. 6 9 . Spot UVs. 7 0 . Ikea. 7 1 . Old postcards with “scalloped edges.” 7 2 . MInneapolis. 7 3 . Route 66. 7 4 . Leaving Southern California. 7 5 . The Flaming Lips. 7 6 . Schaedler rulers. 7 7 . Aluminum items. 78. A vanilla milkshake. 7 9 . Making lists. 8 0 . And checking everything off. 81. F e e l i n g “complete” after a hard day of catching up on house chores and bills. 8 2 . Jackalopes. 8 3 . Bigfoot. 8 4 . Nessie. 8 5 . Skunk Apes. 8 6 . Flying home to mom and dad.

87. A good, brisk walk with Gary. 8 8 . When Gary performs a “two-fer”: Pissin’ and shittin’ when we go out back. 8 9 . Ham radio cards. 9 0 . Bose Speakers. 9 1 . Rain squalls. 9 2 . Fall. 93. S p r i n g rainshowers in Portland. 9 4 . Mowing the grass. 9 5 . The color, “Orange.” 9 6 . Pantone 165. 9 7 . 1” rocker buttons. 9 8 . Those bridges of Madison County. 9 9 . K e n t u c k t y ’ s rolling hills. 1 0 0 . Appalachia. 1 0 1 . Univerisal icons. 1 0 2 . A Western straightaway. 1 0 3 . Business loops off the highway. 1 0 4 . “OFFICE” signs. 1 0 5 . Jackalopes. 1 0 6 . Going home. 1 0 7 . Mom’s french toast. 108. A

letter from a girl. 1 0 9 . Dad’s vegetable beef soup. 1 1 0 . The hills of Eastern Oregon on Highway 20, east of Burns. 1 1 1 . Joe Beebe. A champion. 112. A full tank of gas. 1 1 3 . Flat screen TVs. 1 1 4 . Flat screen monitors. 1 1 5 . Old dimes stores that let the stock “sell out” before rotating it with new crap. 1 1 6 . Log typography. 1 1 7 . Brick buildings. 1 1 8 . The houses of Louisville. 1 1 9 . Shotgun houses in Louisville. 1 2 0 . A nice piece of Alaskan Halibut. 1 2 1 . Uncle Bens’ wild rice. 1 2 2 . Chicken fried rice. 1 2 3 . “Pad Kee Mao” from Chaba Thai down the street. 1 2 4 . Beans & Rice, Dominican style, off the J train in Brooklyn. 1 2 5 . Punjabi, latenight, on Houston in

Manhattan. 1 2 6 . Water chestnuts. 1 2 7 . Baby corn. 1 2 8 . Green beans. 1 2 9 . Asparagus. 1 3 0 . Utah’s license plates. 1 3 1 . Moab. 1 3 2 . Those Badlands of South Dakota. 1 3 3 . Gary gallops/hops and endos when throwing the ball around. 1 3 4 . Getting home after a long roadtrip. 1 3 5 . Writing things down. 1 3 6 . Field Notes. 1 3 7 . Practicing my penmanship. 1 3 8 . Harmonicas. 1 3 9 . That “Dm7” chord. 1 4 0 . Pilote Butte. 1 4 1 . Luis Guzman. 1 4 2 . Philip Seymour Hoffman. 1 4 3 . People who exhibit good grammar and punctuation. (I’m trying!) 1 4 4 . Apsco pencil sharpeners. 1 4 5 .

Boxer shorts. 1 4 6 . Pesto. 1 4 7 . Old warehouse buildings. 1 4 8 . Dogs who lay on their sides. 1 4 9 . Bullet pencils. 1 5 0 . Old maps. 1 5 1 . Cholula hot sauce. 1 5 2 . Dogs who jump from bed to bed in a hotel room. 1 5 3 . Ford Econoline vans. 1 5 4 . S c a n d i n a v i a n flatware. 1 5 5 . 70s textile wall art. Specifically, “Geometric stuff.” 1 5 6 . Heartart textiles by Hiroshi Awatsuji. 157. Political campaign buttons of the 60s and 70s. 1 5 8 . Union pinbacks. 1 5 9 . Golden books. 1 6 0 . Golden guides.

AThings We

Hate 1. The farce Presi-dency of that goddamned George Bush. 2. South-ern California. 3. Hollywood and all its trimmings. 4. Pop Culture Sluts. 5. Kid Rock. 6. Nü Metal. 7. Sitcoms. 8. Gridlock. 9. Summer heat. 10. Cop stance. 11. Turbulence at 30,000 feet. 12. Taking off in a big-ass jet plane. 13. Dropped cell phone calls. 14. Loud fucks on a cell phone. 15. Tsunamis. 16. The Iraq “War.” 17. Charlie-horse wake up calls. 18. Flat tires. 19. Grooms who wear sandals at

their weddings. 20. Anything with a goddamned “Beach Theme.” 21. Disciplining little Gary. 22. The moment the mechanic gets done with yer oil change and politely informs you he “found” an additional $1350 in repairs. 23. Sock and san-dal combos. 24. The random “Princes of Dork-ness” in a mall. 25. Hot Topic bond-age pants 26. Malls. 27. People who say “Woo-Hoo.” 28. Dust bunnies. 29. Spiders. 30. Halitosis. 31. Bills. 32. When the gui-tar gets “de-tuned” by visit-ing “musicians.” 33. Lost re-mote controls. 34. Paper cuts. 35. Bad kerning. 36. “Click-ing” hard drives. 37.

Sore throats. 38. Missing home. 39. Fannypacks. 40. Kitchen humor. 41. Sushi. 42. Tribal tattoos. 43. Big Nike logos on the back win-dow of a rig. 44. Logo whoring by A+F, Ameri-can Eagle, Old Navy and Gap. 45. The stretch of the 405 from LA down to Irvine. 46. Surfer lore. 47. The word, “Dude.” Oh man, enough already. 48. Fucks who do the “Yah, yah, yah…” affirmation con-versation killer. 49. Happy hikers. 50. Milk with dinner. 51. Getting yer car towed. 52. Encores. 53. Artichoke hearts. 54. Repub-lican NeoCons. 55. The band Creed. Those moth-erfuckers. 56. Flight atten-dant attitude.

57. Aqua Socks. 58. “Uncle” Vans shoes. 59. Golf sweatshirts. 60. Faux “worn” hats. Motherfuckers. 61. Faux “worn” anything. 62. Bitch Devil Wife Complex. 63. Toby Keith. 64. Toby Keith’s nose. 65. Toby Keith’s facial hair. 66. Jock patri-ot anthems. 67. Country singers in the Bahamas. 68. Snowboarding Scene Claus-trophobia. 69. Woe stories from a relative. 70. The state of con-temporary road-side signage. 71. People recount-ing the previous night’s drink list. 72. Poorly-kerned anything. 73. Predict-able encores. 74. Mark “Marky Mark” Wahl-berg. Overacti-ing, all the time. 75.

Rascall Flats. 76. Hollywood, Nashville. 77. Country mu-sic clichés. 78. The “American Chopper” de-sign sense: Bad photoshoppery, flames and shit. 79. Overactive Japanese girl bassplayers. 80. Painful band publicity shots. 81. DIY disc packag-ing. Hire someone for fuck’s sake. 82. MBDI disc pack-aging. Asin, “Yeah dude, ‘My Brother Did It’…” shit. 83. Artichokes. 84. Olives. 85. Capers. 86. Beets. 87. Honey Mustard. 88. Dancehall music. 89. WalMart. 90. Dollar General. 91. The strangling of America. 92. Drivers who don’t use their turn signals. 93. Cigarette butts. 94. Cigarette smoke.

95. Vurps. (Vom-it Burps.) 96. Tom DeLay. 97. Rush Lim-baugh anything. 98. Fish bowl smell in a glass of water at a restaurant. 99. Infomericals. 100. Ted “Pastor Ted” Haggard, the Evangelist preacher who rallied against homesexuality, then got caught in a gay sex scan-dal, high as hell on meth. God Bless America. 101. Cute bands with nominal talent. 102. Tools made in China. 103. A dull blade. 104. Utah style wars. 105. Warren Jeffs and his mali-cious ways. 106. Sub Division sig-nage. IE: Sher-wood Acres of Whispering Dicks or whatever. 107. Nike logos on a truck cab window. 108. Cellphones with obnox-ious ringtones. 109. The “strip malling” of America.

110. PBR aftertaste. 111. Foun-dation makeup. 112. The Tea Party. 113. Guy Fieri. 114. Michele Bach-man, that hateful beast of a woman. 115. Karl Rove’s snide smile. 116. Anything Rick Santorum. 117. The middle seat on a plane.

I“Work hard. Do good work. For good people.”Luckily, all the folks who’ve trusted us with their projects have been “good people” in our books. Sure, there’s been a couple chumps along the way, but for the most part, we’ve been lucky enough to work for interesting, creative, progressive people who we consider close friends.

“Thank you for the opportunity to make a hell of a living doing something we love.”

To all of those who’ve rubbed us the wrong way:

“What comes around, goes around, man.”

N“Work hard. Do good work. For good people.”Luckily, all the folks who’ve trusted us with their projects have been “good people” in our books. Sure, there’s been a couple chumps along the way, but for the most part, we’ve been lucky enough to work for interesting, creative, progressive people who we consider close friends.

“Thank you for the opportunity to make a hell of a living doing something we love.”

To all of those who’ve rubbed us the wrong way:

“What comes around, goes around, man.”