2024 PDGA Ace Club Disc

Welcome back! After getting down to the wire; next up on the docket was to figure out how the dragonfly scout drone would look in its environment. These are the reasons I like doing these development blogs. Because a smaller percentage of disc golfers receive the membership and Birdie Club discs; most would not notice the change from dragonfly to hummingbird for the Birdie Club design. It was at this point that John and I decided to split the Birdie Club and Ace Club designs down the middle for the sake of time. I’ll show some of the Birdie Club development below but this blog is ultimately about the Ace Club and further developing that character for her design.

2024 Ace Club
I initially started Ace Club without knowing if the character with the dragonfly drone was male or female. So, I created male-oriented Ace Club thumbnails. When I found out she was female, I made some adjustments. From the beginning, I aimed for a power pose to show strength. I intended to have the character destroying the disc golf course with her immaculate and merciful aim, leaving behind post-battle smoke and debris. From the beginning of switching from front, back, and side I had her holding a stack of discs. It reminded me of going out to a hole wanting to throw one in. You would grab a stack of your favorite discs and proceed to launch countless times to try and see it go in off the tee. The pose took some work but that lower upward angle stuck. Vic and John gave me great feedback to add the dragonfly toward the end of the rough stage like a support drone. While the concepts for Birdie and Ace moved away from the original idea slightly, I tried to keep the TRON-like appeal and the environment intact.

You can still get these Ace Club discs from the Professional Disc Golf Association if you’re interested in registering. Joining the Ace Club is a simple option you receive after picking your Amateur or Professional status. I want to thank Vic Allen and the PDGA for allowing me to collaborate with John Dorn once again. John is a legend in the disc golf stamp design game, and some of his inspirational stamps for Worlds and events around the world made me believe that this could be a viable career one day. What were some of your favorite things from the 2024 PDGA Renewal disc drop?

2023 PDGA Membership Discs

In mid-summer of 2022, Vic Allen reached out to me to ask if I’d be interested in taking on the 2023 stamp. On the table were the Membership, Birdie Club, and Ace Club discs. These discs were slated to be stamped on black R2 (MVP’s recycled line) Craves. So with that in mind, you’ve got your black line layer on the flight plate which allows you 3 colors to accent that. It’s a different way of thinking with stamp design but a fun one.

I’d noodle in my sketchbook for about a week or so when Vic came back with an idea to possibly do a collaboration with John Dorn. John has been doing disc golf/ frisbee stamp design for decades. He had recently created the 2021 Relay Turtle stamp that went over really well. I jumped at the opportunity, hit up John Dorn on a phone call to work out the pipeline, and we got to work.

2023 PDGA Membership Disc: Koi Dragon

The Koi Dragon stamp started off as 3 fish swimming aimlessly in a fish bowl. After passing off this thumbnail to John, he added in the dragon and explained the story of how a Koi fish turns into a dragon. I thought this was awesome and definitely gave a jolt to this concept. John passed the concept back and it was my turn to dilute some of the noise and chaos happening and to bring this illustration home into 3 foil form. It took a bit to do that. The dragon was giving me fits. I probably redrew the dragon 2 or 3 times until I was happy with it.

The last edit going into the final phase was adding the important disc golf element. To do that, we came up with the solution to use a basket silhouette within the koi and include chains within the watery mix. I think this design turned out great!

2023 PDGA Birdie Club:

John started off with a super strong line drawing thumbnail for Birdie Club. When we passed off our designs, my first objective was to get this on a black background and start figuring out how this was going to work with foiling. I used gradients to John’s strength. He has a printing background and uses a halftone pattern fill for heavier parts of a design. I thought this could be a great way to blend the stamp into the dark flight plate. I thought that while the visual landscape was interesting; we needed characters navigating the course. That excitement of playing a disc golf course you’ve never played before. This felt very much like a dreamscape to me.

2023 PDGA Ace Club:

This Ace Club design started with a pretty strong photo from the known photographer, Beth Moon. The reference pulls from a dragon’s blood tree from Socotra Island. I love the umbrella-like silhouette and rigid shape of the canopy. It’s from there that I ventured away from the reference and put a more massive trunk like a very old oak tree. A combination of two ideas. John took then took my thumbnail idea and placed the basket and swirling root/ whimsical touch in the foreground section. We moved away from the gigantic mushroom because we didn’t want to show any psilocybin/ drug references as a PDGA offering. The absolute biggest hurdle with this stamp was the clipping area around the tree. Using the black R2 core to help with coverages and getting the correct foil gradients to do that work for us.

I just want to finish this by thanking Vic Allen for giving us the opportunity. It was a rewarding experience working alongside a disc golf design legend, a specific dark core color, and having to think about foil properties early on in the development stages. It helped us solve a lot of those issues before the Rough/ final phase of the artwork was to be addressed. A few stamp tests had to be sent to the PDGA before the final foils were chosen. I want to personally thank Ian Palmer for handling those logistics and collaborating to make sure we have the best foil represented on these. If you have any questions, feel free to ask below! You can actually purchase a Membership disc with your PDGA Membership renewal for $20!

2022 Gyropalooza Total Eclipse Proxy

The 2022 Gyopalooza brings something pretty exciting. We had a new Total Eclipse glow technology in the lab awaiting its release. The Proxy is outfitted with both an Eclipse™ Glow flight plate and Eclipse™ Glow Rim. Colors vary from white, aqua, green, blue, and purple with a multitude of different combinations.

The Idea: I had this image in my head but instead of being an intimidating alien species laser-stomping everything in sight, they were dispatched to broadcast exclusive MVP content and news to the Gyronaut masses! All of this sounded great but the important goal from the get-go was not to hinder the glow properties. I think it’s important to design stamps with disc plastic in mind. If the glow is an important draw, why would you cloud it up with foil? Lastly, by setting up a two-point perspective grid, it gave me a great base to lay down that looming presence of the tall beings. There are still a few MVP iconic themes scattered about.

I wanted some of the TVs to engage with the local disc golfers. It was a good placement for “2022”, discs, and a Brad/Chad silhouette we’ve come to know so well these past digital versions of Gyropalooza. Lastly, the last and most important icon located on the far right represents a huge love for all of our fans who’ve stuck by us from the very beginning through the years of rapid growth. I love to infuse emotive characteristics in robots. Allowing robots to have a bit more life and curiosity like our human race. Lastly, I wanted the center alien bot to have its glow casting on the disc golfers underneath. I used a line screen in the background to enhance that particular element. Doing that for every TV would’ve clouded up where I wanted the focus to go.

Hot Stamping Foils: I’m a sucker for white pigment foil because of how bright the Eclipse glow plastic is. It allows some of that color to seep through and gives the glowing state a bit more depth. The accent color is a classy nod of brushed gold that allows it to pop off of that core plastic color. Again, it’s important that the accented foils work alongside the others during the glowing state.

Can’t wait to get some of these in my hands. MVP took their industry-leading glow and just made it better. I don’t get out and play glow rounds very often but this disc makes it tempting. What are your thoughts? Excited to see these in the wild? You can get your 2022 Gyropalooza pack from any reputable MVP dealer. Included will be this Total Eclipse Proxy, a Prototype Eclipse Color Glow Envy, and Lab Second discs for a pretty good price. Thanks for tuning in!

MVP Nomad - James Conrad Special Edition

The MVP James Conrad Nomad Special Edition was a unique one. This project kicked off a bit earlier than most people realize. We had James Conrad’s Signature Line Nomads in production before he hit the biggest shot in disc golf (IMO). With that event happening and the surge and interest solely on MVP and their debut of James’ first designed putter; We shifted gears just before going into final stamp design.

First off, this design from the get-go was a collective agreement from the MVP Media Dept. that it should be a cohesive nod to the stock Electron Nomad stamp that was also debuting at the same time. With that, I was able to dial in on the “traveler/ nomad” aspect and reach down into my science-fiction/ dystopian love. I’m one to do extensive research before going into the thumbnail stage. Grand Canyon/ desert paintings from the incredible minds of Mark Maggiori, Pablo Carpio, and Pascal Blanche helped dial in a smooth style with the rock formations and overall composition.

With this project; I knew I wanted to push the limits of our Election stamping capabilities. Although nervous, I knew our MVP HQ stamping team could put their best into making sure these came out successful. It took quite a bit of value painting work to figure out the half-toning fills. I worked back and forth with the inclusion of black within the stamp and found a great compromise of subtracting the would be black line work from the background.

In the end, i’m glad this art was in preproduction before James Conrad flipped MVP on its head. I was able to adjust on the fly and include the Worlds nods relatively easily. I’m glad this went ver so well with James and the pro players he showed during his warmup rounds. That meant a lot.

What did you enjoy most about the Nomad Special Edition?

Cameron Beck 2021 MVP Tour Series

Cameron Beck is an avid climber and Team MVP member. He approached me this off-season with an idea to marry his love of rock climbing, eco-friendliness into his first official tour series stamp. Some of the proceeds would go to a local course but also support him for the 2021 touring season. I knew just by following Cameron that he spent some time over in France for a short period. Our initial thoughts on the design were to feature the cliff rocks from Étretat in Northern France. That arch is insanely beautiful and the fact that they climb with water below really got the gears going in the thumbnail stages.

I took some time to R&D but I couldn’t get enough reference of someone in the act of climbing that particular location. From there I went to a few ideas that I thought could make for a compelling stamp. The idea of this climber reaching toward a disc golf basket perched high above. It would allow me to encompass disc golf and his love of climbing into one stamp. The thumbnail sheet gave him 3 different approaches we could go with that idea. In the end, we both thought #2 had a creative solution around the center no art zone. It also featured sharp diagonals and great negative space underneath the climber to show the suspense and danger that comes along with sport climbing.

The design, shape, and placement of the rock face allowed the great vertical read from the basket - climber - down to his name in the lower 3rd of the stamp. I really liked how this stamp turned out and appreciate Cameron giving me the liberty to put something together for him.

Axiom Prism Plasma - Stock

The Axiom Discs Prism Plasma plastic brings the shimmering beauty of a core fused with the luster of a candy-like Prism outer rim. In this development blog, I dip my toes into a few decisions that made me arrive at its current design. With pen and paper in my hand; the first thought was how can I get in and get out with the least amount of wreckage?

The plastic combination does the work for you! My goal was to create a non-intrusive 3 foil design that allowed the plastic to speak to the consumer. Axiom branding has dabbled in the Fibonacci sequence, DNA, flying machines and very artistic approach to high-level concepts. I centered this piece on simplicity. The ring uses to shape sequences that follow the 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21 sequence. The design is duplicated and flipped on the opposite side. This creates this really cool halftone fill/ inverted look with the silver holofoil. Again, making this design bleed some of that beautiful, shimmering foil through. The 3 foils break down to Black, Silver holofoil for the ring and color transition holofoil for the Name/Prism logo fill. The font chosen to represent the disc name and flight numbers is Antonio. I wanted a font that was clean with a little bit of height to be legible from a distance.

All in all, sometimes the super simple designs take the most time. I’m glad we stuck to our guns on the outlining goals of this stamp art. It’s simply celebrating the look of the plastic and allowing a stamp to go along for the ride. It also looks really cool spinning through the air.