K2 Omen ft. Julia Schimautz - Winter 2024/25
Role: K2 Design Director
Art in Motion.
Julia Schimautz is an Austrian born designer, currently practicing in the art and cultural hub of Berlin, Germany. She specializes in animations that feel so real you’d swear you’re on a heavy dose of psychedelics. They are captivating, gritty, and have this sense of tangibility that she achieves through Risographic printing.
My team and I discovered Julia’s art during a design inspiration trip to Berlin in the summer of 2022. The trip was to kickoff the start of the design cycle for the 2024 collection, find some new art and ideas, and to be perfectly honest - get a change of headspace from the confinement of the pandemic.
During our travels - we quickly became reminded as to how much we missed travel. We missed seeing the world. We missed new styles of artwork that we just weren’t seeing back home. We missed Art in Motion.
When walking the streets of Berlin - we discovered Julia’s work for the first time.
The Frame.
Due to the eye catching nature of Julia’s artwork - we aimed for a clean and consistent approach to the logos and typography. Working with K2’s Graphic Design - John Cottle we developed a badging and typeface that set the frame for the artwork.
While wanting to have the collection feel connected through the artwork - we also didn’t want the skis to all feel 100% like the one next to it. Using a variety of framing and scaling of the artwork, we created three different models - each variation in waist-width, skiing style, and ability level.
Can’t Forget The Boots.
With the skis looking this good we added a few boot models to make sure that we were roudning out the offering. K2’s FL3X collection caters to freestyle enthusiast and features rad details that open us up to color and print in a unique way. We brought in Julia’s unique blend of a standard pallet of CMYK to the boots details and added a repeated interpretation of her artwork to the boot liners. All gender sizing throughout - these boots were some of the best products of the year for K2 and the ski industry as a whole.
Cut Loose.
The Omen collection is that ski that ends up being seen by the most amount of eyes - purely because of how it is used and who is using it. From global level podiums on the best skiers in the world - to the social media clips that get posted daily from the local hero lapping the terrain park - people see these skis!
To put it bluntly - this is our team’s ski. We knew we had to launch it with their whole crew there to really set these into motion. The who crew gathered for a “team shoot” to kick this collection off and have one damn good time while doing it.
More Coverage…
FIELD MAG
Q & A... Our friends at FIELD MAG featuring this project with some words from Julia about her process, the collection, and her draw to work with K2. For more about this article please visit FIELD MAG!
Additional Contributions:
Skiers: Joona Kangas, Isaac Simhon, Kai Mahler, Aliah Eichinger, Zoe Blewett, Keegan Kilbride, Joss Christensen and MANY more!
Ski and Ski Boot Engineering: Jed Yeiser, Sean Fearon, Drew Grout, Kyle Evers, Austin Peters, Christie Burrows.
Additional Design: John Cottle, Elsa Grant
Product Line Management: Tyler Delumyea, Tom Pietrowski | Marketing and Brand Direction: Tom Johnson, Julia White, Khai Krepala, Ronja Blut
Leadership: John Colonna, Pete Stolz, Jon Roy, Tim Swart
Photography and Videography: Theo Acworth, Cam Willis, Julia White, Khai Krepala | Edit: Seamus Foster
MAJOR THANK YOU to Julia Schimautz