Lieuwe: Made For You

There is something undeniably cool about owning something that nobody else has.

Kiteboarding equipment has never looked better. Walk onto a beach today, and you are surrounded by beautifully designed kites and boards, with brands putting huge amounts of effort into graphics, colours, and finishes. The downside is that, however good your board looks, there is probably somebody standing fifty metres down the beach with exactly the same one.

Lieuwe has a rather different answer to that.

The Dutch board manufacturer has long had a reputation for doing things its own way, but perhaps one of the coolest parts of the Lieuwe offering is the ability to turn one of its kiteboards into something genuinely personal. Not just choosing between three colourways, but creating a board that is completely your own.

Your Board, Your Story

The concept is wonderfully simple. Start with the Lieuwe board that suits your riding, then decide how it should look.

That could mean supplying a complete design you’ve created yourself. It could be a photograph, an illustration, original artwork, a collection of images, or something connected to a place, person, or moment that means something to you.

If the idea is there but the artistic ability to turn it into a finished board graphic isn’t, that’s where things get particularly interesting. Lieuwe’s artists can do it for you.

Provide the inspiration, and they turn it into something that works on a kiteboard.

There’s no need to arrive with a perfectly finished Photoshop file. An idea, a theme, and some direction can be enough for somebody who actually knows how to design a board to take it from there.

How Far Do You Want To Go?

Lieuwe has divided the custom process into four different levels, depending on how much creative help is required.

Boogie is the straightforward option. Add a name or number, provide a logo or photograph, or submit a completed design.

Mega gives Lieuwe’s artists more involvement. Supply a logo, photograph, or illustration, and they work with it to create the finished graphic.

King takes things considerably further. Provide the creative brief, and Lieuwe creates a full custom illustration or photo collage around the idea.

Then there is The Boss, the most extensive option, where the artists create a much more involved bespoke illustration or collage from the brief.

The interesting thing about the system is that it works whether you’re a designer who knows precisely what you want or somebody whose artistic vocabulary extends little further than, “I really like octopuses, Japanese tattoos, and the colour blue.”

Both can ultimately end up with something unique.

A Blank Canvas

A kiteboard is actually a fantastic canvas.

There is a surprising amount of space to work with, and unlike a piece of artwork hanging on a wall, this is something that comes along for the ride. It gets ridden, travelled with, photographed, scratched, repaired, and eventually becomes part of a rider’s history in the sport.

That’s perhaps what makes the idea so appealing.

A design could be built around the place where you learned to kite, an image from an unforgettable trip, artwork from your children, a favourite wave, a home spot, a tattoo, a piece of music, or simply an idea you’ve always wanted to see brought to life.

Or it could just be something completely ridiculous that makes you smile every time you pick the board up. There aren’t many pieces of sporting equipment that offer that kind of freedom.

More Than A Colourway

Customisation isn’t new in kiteboarding, but much of what gets called custom is really a choice between predetermined options. Pick this colour, choose that rail, add your name, and select a finish.

This feels different.

The ability to hand somebody an idea and have an artist turn it into the finished graphic makes the process far more personal. Lieuwe isn’t asking you to choose which of its designs you like best. It’s asking what you would like your board to be.

That’s a subtle distinction, but an important one. The result isn’t just a limited edition or an unusual colour combination. Potentially, it is the only board in the world that looks like yours.

Built To Be Ridden

Of course, none of this would matter very much if the custom artwork was being applied to something destined to hang on a wall. The starting point is still a proper Lieuwe kiteboard.

The custom programme is currently available across the Awesome, Shotgun, Shotgun Air, Brute, and Falcon, so the board can be chosen to suit the way it will actually be ridden before thinking about how it is going to look.

That’s important. The artwork is the fun bit, but underneath it is still the board you wanted in the first place. It also makes the idea of commissioning something special easier to justify. This isn’t artwork pretending to be sporting equipment. It’s sporting equipment that happens to provide a very large canvas for expressing yourself.

One Of One

We spend a lot of time obsessing over performance in kiteboarding. Rocker lines, flex patterns, materials, weight, fins, channels, outlines, and increasingly complicated construction technologies all matter.

But equipment can have an emotional side too.

Most of us have owned a board that we remember long after we’ve forgotten half the specifications of everything else we’ve ridden. Perhaps it came on an amazing trip, helped us land something we’d been trying for years, or simply stayed in the quiver long enough to become an old friend.

Being able to decide exactly what that board looks like adds another layer to the relationship.

In a world increasingly filled with mass-produced products, there is something refreshingly old school about commissioning something specifically for you.Choose the board. Come up with an idea. Give Lieuwe’s artists as much or as little input as you want, and create something nobody else at your local beach can own.

Then go and put some scratches on it.

Because however beautiful it looks when it arrives, a custom Lieuwe is still a kiteboard, and the best stories are the ones you add to it yourself.