arbor-09-10-cover-smallIn 2008 Design Cartel was invited to work with Arbor Snowboards as their snowboard engineering / product design partner.
The opportunity arose when Arbor switched their snowboard production from their existing supplier to the Elan Snowboard Factory in Austria for their 2009/12010 production year.

This switch in factories meant that Arbor had the very unique opportunity to completely re-design their snowboard product line from the ground up.  The design process began with a review of Arbor’s current product offering, the identification of new opportunites and potential areas for refinement.
 A new product line philosophy was developed based on Arbor’s Board / Terrain Mapping Targets.  This philosophy took into consideration all the different aspects of the end user/rider requirements, the technical board shaping specifications, the shape and ride consistancy between sizes within each model, sales and marketing feedback and the forward progression of snowboarding.
Once the new philosophy was developed it was then used to control and drive the board shaping data, core profile data and material & construction specifications.   To sum it up, all the technical elements of the snowboard line were developed according to the new line philosopy so that we could achieve excelent consistancy between each models on snow performance and precicely deliver a product that would meet each riders expectations and needs within the different terrain / riding style categories.

One of the most notable boards to result from this development process was the 2010 Draft.  This board underwent months of development and testing in Europe, USA and Australia.  The end result is a collection of new technologies that Arbor term “The System Set of Technologies”.  Its a fusion of several aspects of the boards shape and construction and you can read more about it here – Arbor REDESIGNS THE DRAFT SERIES BASED ON their NEW SYSTEM set OF TECHNOLOGIES.

Below are a a number of photographs from Arbor’s 2009/2010 catalogue.