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The competition is over, the entries have all been judged and the judges have chosen a winner.
Once again we have amazed by the quality, variety and sheer volume of the number of submissions for Pimp My Kite. We love competitions at BEST, it's a great way of giving something back to our customers and of sharing the buzz and excitement that kitesurfing gives us every day.
This year we had to choose from literally hundreds of entries from fans of all ages who are desperate to design and own an utterly unique, one-off BEST TS v2 kite. We looked at the number of likes, discussed the options with our competition partner Tramontana Graffix, Kite Addict and Schwerelosigkite and Stance Magazine who provided the prizes for 2nd and 3rd place and eventually we arrived at the final three.
In third place the judges chose Guto's strongly colored stencil design. It struck a chord with their design sensibilities for its bold use of different treatments of the BEST fish on each panel segment.
In second place with the submission that judges thought helped 'turn it up to 11' was Tony's retro ghettoblaster design. The judges loved the 80's vibe that captures the fun of kitesurfing. It's a big bold graphic that shouts out loud and lets everyone know exactly how you are rocking. It even had us digging out some 90's compilation cassettes late last night as we picked the winner.
The grand winner, in first place with a design that was liked universally by judges and Facebook voters was Giovanni's 'Make love no war'. The judges felt that Giovanni managed to capture the essence of enjoying a good session and the laid back, forgiving attitude that typifies the best kiters on and off the water. His graphic had a global theme and a message that seeks to unite kiters everywhere- and for that reason he'll be receiving his own, unique, custom printed TS v2 kite emblazoned with his very own design. Congratulations Giovanni.
Thanks to everyone who entered there were some brilliant designs submitted, quite a few that didn't stick to the rules that we have loved to have chosen, but we have play fair. If you didn't win this time don't worry, we will have another competition for you in the new year and of course Pimp My Kite will be back again next year.
We managed to catch up with Andreas, from Tramontana Graffix who will be producing Giovanni's winning design and asked him a few questions about what goes into making a custom kite.
Q. Andreas thanks for being joint sponsor again for the Pimp My Kite competition, there were hundreds of entries again this year, what did you think of the designs?
A. The standard was really high once again. There were some very complicated designs submitted, we are looking forward into starting work on the winning kite.
Q. How long will it take to produce the finished kite?
A. There is a lot of work that goes into making any design, we have to create a full size computer file first, then we print that onto our special coloured adhesive films and this has to be applied to the kite. Smaller details have to be solvent printed directly onto the kite, there are a lot of steps and for a full kite graphic like this is might take 10-14 days.
Q. How many kites do you make a year?
A. The number is always changing, this year we made a dozen fully wrapped LEI kites. We printed over 1200 school kites and made graphics for so many events, trade shows and retail accounts I couldn't even count them all up. Kiting is just a small part of our business we manufacture business graphics for corporate events all over the world and in many different fields, from cars to computers, we cover it all.
Q. Will you make a custom kite for anyone?
A. Of course we will, bring us your design and we will take care of everything else for you just drop me an email or call us on the phone.
We will be checking back in with Andreas and the Tramontana Graffix crew in a couple weeks to see exactly how production of the winner design took place.