a_burgerI think it's less about comps and more about skis sitting on the shop wall.
large for profit companies would rather someone feel indifferent to their simple graphics then have some customers love the graphics while another portion hate them (and thus the company misses out on some sales)
Simple graphics can be great sometimes, for example the K2 Red White and Blue topsheet. Shame they only bring it out for retro anniversary skis every once in a while.
I think a better strategy for companies is building association by closely styling all their topsheets between seasons, for example the Afterbang 2009-2012.
**This post was edited on Sep 1st 2018 at 9:58:30pm
I did think about that, and the 'simple' graphics are as good, tasteful or whatever you want to call it as detailed ones. I'm not saying that geometric, abstract graphics are bad or are less work to make. They just serve a slightly different purpose. I'm positive large companies hire talented graphic designers and pay them as much as any other company would. An example of what I mean is, the simple volkl graphics of recent years are extremely easy to identify on television and from a distance. They even made the logo bigger and blockier for visibility. They have done this to such an extent that it was easy for J skis and Steve Stepp to parody Volkl (see the skis Abraham Cain rides in 'Heart of Skiing'). In contrast, ON3P's topsheets all have fairly minute attention to detail which is lovely on close inspection, but is not as instantly recognizable from a distance. The aforementioned Volkls look pretty much the same in shop as they do on TV, in fact from across a large room it's easier to pick them out, especially if you've already seen them in videos.
As far as staying close stylistically across model years, the main reason companies do dramatically their graphics I suspect is to give the notion they've re-designed the ski, which is not often the case. Changing a graphic can even make a ski appear to have changed in width, sidecut or thickness, even though the difference may only be visual.
I do love those retro K2s, but only releasing them sometimes almost certainly ensures that they sell more units when they do drop that graphic.
**This post was edited on Sep 1st 2018 at 10:56:46pm