Archive · 2005 — 2015
Become a part of a new legend
“Where we will devote our lives into the extreme sports we love.”
Jorg JansenWhy Shark Cartel
Creators listening to their community. Human to human, on a small scale. That was the whole difference.
Dedicated, determined and focused like a shark. The Cartel was a set of sports bound by one thing: progression. On the road, in the air, in the water, on the snow and in the dirt.
Products were made by turning the production cycle around and manufacturing only what was needed. Skills were made by picking the best teachers first. Experiences were made through events people were part of.
“Create what is needed by people, instead of creating what is needed by corporations.”
The second branding system
Every sponsored sport carried its own lockup and its own colour. Same hand, twelve disciplines. The colours could not be changed.
How it grew
The Cartel was formalised in 2011, but the name had already been running for six years. It started in the water.
Own product lines
Not a reseller catalogue. These carried our own name, our own graphics and our own moulds.
Three deck models, six widths each, three coloured stains per board: top ply, middle, sixth. Octopussy shipped in orange, green and blue.
Our own moulds under the Icon line, printed with the monogram and produced in four colourways.
Built by us, not badged. The Icon carried the wordmark full length on the base and the monogram on the topsheet.
The place
We rented a gymnastics hall and built an indoor skatepark inside it. Quarter pipes, banks, a mini ramp, a foam pit and trampolines, most of it built by us from our own drawings.
It ran from February to June 2012. It was a training space for the team, a place to run sessions and clinics, and on at least one evening a venue with the floor full of people watching.
Behind it sat a bigger plan: a permanent extreme sports centre. The deck still exists, and the numbers in it are worth reading fourteen years on.
Alongside it in the group sat Shark Shop and Shark Distribution.
The rest of the group
The Cartel was a holding structure, not a single company. Beneath it sat a webshop, a distribution arm and the Safe House.
Our own webshop at sharkshop.eu, running on Magento with a mobile and a touch build. Our own products alongside the brands we carried, from decks to GoPro accessories.
It started with its own blog in February 2012 and was folded into the main Shark Cartel site a year later, in February 2013.
The import and distribution arm. We took on brands we rated and brought them into the Benelux: logistics, dealer terms, marketing and sponsorship, all handled by us.
It had its own name, its own identity and its own dealer list. Not everything we took on found its market, which is the ordinary reality of distribution.
Events
Sponsoring other people's contests was the easy option. We ran our own instead, with our own name on the door, our own riders in the start list and a running order down to the quarter hour.
A year on from the snowskate try-out, at the same venue, with its own domain and its own poster.
Also in the calendar: Skatefest, and Rail Riot, which keeps recurring through the daily photo project in 2012 and 2013.
The third branding system
Every sponsored rider got a personal logo and a poster under the Shark Cartel label. Not decoration. It told them they mattered.
Taken from the closing credits of the team film, at the point the roster was at its largest. Everyone who rode, coached, filmed or carried gear.
Two of them appear in the credits by first name only. Their surnames are gone from every record I have.
Moving pictures
Shot on DV and early GoPro, cut at the kitchen table. Everything under the Shark name, 2010 to 2013, in order. The first two predate the Cartel itself.
More sits in the archive unconverted. It will go up when the rest of the material is properly sorted. The Ivo Boers rider promo plays from his poster in Riders.
Still in the boxes
The archive holds 535 files across thirteen folders, 4.3 GB, plus 1,647 blog posts across six blogs. This page uses a fraction of it.
Forty-nine files. Sponsor profiles, shoots and the rider posters this page only samples.
Sticker sets, the 2011 and 2012 style manuals, web assets, the Tacky banner campaign.
Relaties, the supplier and partner files, twenty-nine unlabelled photographs, and a pile of footage still in formats nothing plays any more.