Young designer’s work catches some air

Melissa Scotton’s web site seems to sum up her outlook on the world:

“To add even more frosting on this delicious cupcake of life, two of my boards were ridden in the 2006 Olympics in the women’s halfpipe competition,” she writes.

 Young, motivated and full of the joy of life, Scotton, AS ’04, a graphic designer and illustrator, is living her dream. She creates designs that decorate snowboards, clothing, posters and other items related to action sports. During the 2006 Olympics, two of her designs adorned boards ridden by competitors in the Winter Games, one of whom, Kjersti Buaas of Norway, won the bronze medal in the women’s halfpipe.

Scotton says she fell in love with snowboarding relatively late in life. She was all of 18 when she first flew down a snow-covered mountain with her feet bound to a board.

“I haven’t been able to stop since,” Scotton says. “It’s become one of my biggest passions.”

After high school, she became a visual communications major with a concentration in graphic design at UD. Soon after, she says, she realized that her ultimate dream job would be designing snowboard graphics. 

“After I got into snowboarding, I knew I wanted to be a bigger part of it, but I knew I would never be able to be a professional rider, so I thought of other ways to be involved,” she says. 

Scotton decided to combine her passion for design with her love of snowboarding. “The feeling of freedom riding down a mountain is like no other,” she says. “I try to channel that feeling when creating my art.”

So, she put together a portfolio of her work aimed at the action sports industry, and after a while, she began freelancing for such action sports companies as Roxy, Grenade and Jetty, among others.

After graduating in 2004, she got a job at UD in the Management Information Services in Information Technologies, designing web sites for various departments on campus. Scotton calls the experience “a great first step into the world of professional design.” She also worked with Hendrik-Jan Francke, assistant professor of art, to create a new web page for the Department of Fine Arts and Visual Communications.

She applied for design jobs in California, where the majority of action sports companies are located. Six months after graduating, she landed a full-time job for Spy Optic, manufacturer of sunglasses, goggles, action sports equipment and apparel, located in San Diego County.

She was working for Spy and freelancing when Roxy, the woman’s division of Quiksilver, one of the largest action sports companies in the business, commissioned her to design six snowboards.

Two of the Roxy snowboards she designed were chosen by Olympic contenders for use in Turin this year. Buaas was riding the “Silhouette” when she took the bronze medal in the women’s halfpipe. Melo Ima of Japan rode the other. The two women are members of Roxy’s snowboard team.

Scotton left Spy Optics recently and moved back to Landenberg, Pa., where she is freelancing for action sports companies. She’s also looking into graduate schools.

Scotton says she loves designing but isn’t motivated primarily by money.

In a recent e-mail message to her friends in UD’s visual communications program, she wrote, “You know snowboarding is a huge part of my life, so being able to combine two of my biggest passions, design and snowboarding, is amazing. I can’t wait to see what else is in store for me!”  

— Barbara Garrison