Merch & Graphic Identity

Agility Boulders

An ongoing collaboration with the owners at Agility Boulders, a climbing gym in Capitola. Retro sci-fi posters, apparel, and stickers.

Agility Boulders gig poster: a UFO beaming climbers up a mountain over Capitola, CA, in a retro teal and cream palette.
Client
Agility Boulders, Capitola, CA
Role
Graphic Design, Merch Design, Illustration
Timeline
Ongoing
Tools
Illustrator, Photoshop
Outcome
An ongoing drop cycle of apparel and prints for the gym's community

The brief

Agility Boulders wanted merch that belonged to the climbers themselves: a little weird, a little local, and a joy to wear. Capitola sits just down the coast from Santa Cruz and all of its UFO and Mystery Spot lore, so I followed that thread all the way into orbit. Aliens, beam-ups, and a community that treats the wall like a strange planet waiting to be explored.

This one keeps unfolding. New apparel, stickers, and posters arrive as the gym runs new events, so it lives as a standing collaboration that grows drop by drop.

Because it keeps going, the look evolves with every season. Each drop shares a sense of humor and a set of tools: sci-fi one season, petroglyphs the next, chrome heavy-metal lettering when the event calls for it.

The 'I Want to Boulder' flat artwork: a UFO beaming a triangle of light down over cream pyramids on a black starfield, a climber scaling one of them and an alien perched on the saucer.
I Want to Boulder. The artwork, built to read at a distance on a dark garment.
Navy crewneck sweatshirt with the 'I Want to Boulder' UFO-and-mountain graphic printed across the back.
On the sweatshirt. Cream ink on navy, sized so the pyramids clear the shoulder seams.
Flat graphic detail: katakana type reading 'Agility' over a halftone photo collage, paired with a triangular mountain mark.
Katakana. Halftone collage under hand-set katakana, with the triangle mark holding the corner.
Purple t-shirt held up to camera, printed with the katakana and mountain graphic.
On the tee. The same panel printed square on purple, so the collage and the garment move together.
An 'I heart Rocks' sticker on cream stock: slab-serif type with a red heart above a black boulder carrying the Agility Boulders name and Capitola, CA.
I heart Rocks. Three elements: the heart, the boulder, and the town.
The 'I heart Rocks' design printed on a natural canvas tote bag, hanging from the arm of a black leather and chrome chair against a concrete wall.
On the tote. The sticker art scales straight up to a bag, ready exactly as drawn.
The petroglyph design on cornflower blue: cut-paper letters spelling Agility Boulders around two white panels of blue rock-art figures and animals.
Petroglyphs, blue. Cut-paper letters and rock-art panels, drawn once.
The same petroglyph design in a gold colourway, showing how the artwork is re-grounded rather than redrawn.
Petroglyphs, gold. Same art, new ground. A fresh colorway comes together in an afternoon.
An olive t-shirt hanging in dense green foliage, printed with the blue petroglyph Agility Boulders graphic.
On olive. The garment does the job the printed ground does on the flat.
The same petroglyph graphic on a white t-shirt, hanging in the same foliage.
On white. Same screen, different shirt. Keeping the panels white is what makes every shirt possible.

The graphics

Underneath the drops lives a small kit that keeps getting rebuilt: a cut-out climber, a band of color, and the triangle-and-summit mark. Swap the ground and the climber and a new piece appears, which lets the work move at the speed a gym posts.

The climbers are photographed members, knocked out and pushed to high contrast, so the person on the shirt is somebody you might share a mat with. The mark stays a simple triangle with a snowcap notch, strong enough to live as a sticker on a water bottle and a sign over a door.

A cut-out photo of a climber mid-move across a rainbow-striped arc, with a black mountain silhouette below and Agility Boulders, Capitola, CA set in an arc.
The kit, assembled one way. Climber, color band, mark.
The same construction on kraft paper: a climber hanging from a bar over wavy bands of orange, yellow, green and blue.
And another. Kraft ground, waves in place of stripes, a new climber.
A lavender layout with a climber hanging from a bar beside a set of concentric squares and two overlapping triangle marks.
Geometry takes the lead. The concentric squares stand in for the band.
A 'Lets Climb.' graphic on slate blue: three boulders drawn as cartoon characters with arms, legs and faces, climbing holds standing in for their features.
Lets Climb. The one drop where the boulders become the characters, with holds for faces.
An illustrated graphic of layered blue mountain ridges under a red sun, with the teal Agility triangle-and-summit mark sitting on the horizon.
The mark as landscape. The triangle stops being a logo and becomes a peak.
A Pleasure Point version of the same illustration: a red sun over the headland with a surfer on the cliff path and the teal triangle mark above.
Pleasure Point. Same construction moved down the coast, for a gym whose members surf.
A teal and yellow advert: a baby's feet reaching for a yellow climbing hold, with 'Be Bold.' set large and the gym's address, website and phone number along the bottom.
Be Bold. The one piece carrying an address and a phone number, so it gets the calmest, clearest layout.
An 'I Wanna Rock' graphic: chrome heavy-metal lettering over an airbrushed sunset mountain range, with the Agility Boulders name in matching chrome below.
I Wanna Rock. Chrome and airbrush in full heavy-metal glory.
A white t-shirt on a hanger clipped to a chain-link fence against a blue sky, printed with a green and pink boulder graphic.
Shot where it lives. Product photography on the gym's own fence, right where the shirts belong.
The UFO poster on a cutting mat under a guillotine trimmer, being cut down to size by hand.
Trimmed by hand. Small runs, cut down one at a time in the studio.