MAY 2025

That Time I Got to (Help) Design a Roller Coaster…

When I first knew I wanted to work in graphic design, I imagined myself working at an advertising agency, coming up with witty headlines for magazine ads, and designing packaging and logos. Maybe someday I could even art direct some cool brochures or billboards. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would have the opportunity to help design a roller coaster. At Six Flags no less! I mean, I grew up in the Midwest where we were much more realistic about our theme park aspirations. Disneyland was in California and that seemed like another world. But Six Flags? That was just a long car ride away. I remember we went to Six Flags over Texas when I was in junior high school and this one couple got caught making out in the back of the bus.

So…when I heard that Six Flags had approached Tony Hawk about licensing his name and image to a new skateboarding-themed roller coaster at their St. Louis park, I was pretty excited about making sure I was included in the visual design of the coaster. Luckily, the design director at Six Flags headquarters was equally as interested in working with Tony and our team to make sure the designs were authentic and on point for Tony’s brand and representative of his career. At our first meeting I learned that their design director had actually started out at one of Six Flags’ smaller local parks called Frontier City in OKC, just down the highway from where I grew up. So, we had a lot in common and worked well together as the design process progressed. I got to design the logo for the attraction (and subsequent merchandise), and was given CADs of the overall structure. I got to basically fill in the blanks with my designs and “skin” the overall graphics of the ride. We also got to write and create all the graphics showing the history of skateboarding and the history of Tony Hawk’s career as you stood in line in the “queue.” The spinning ride cars were made to look as much like skateboards as possible and I got to help create the visuals for those as well.

When the ride launched in 2007, our team headed to St. Louis for the Grand Opening, and Tony and his mom got to take the first official ride on Tony Hawk’s Big Spin roller coaster. Six Flags eventually added Big Spin coasters in three other parks. After the licensing deal terminated years later, those coasters were all rebranded as “Pandemonium” and are still in action today. And that’s how I got to help design a roller coaster!

Here is a video someone else created talking about the history of spinning roller coasters and all about Tony’s coaster. It’s long, but check it out if you have time. Now on to other things…

Whatever happened to...

Sometimes you work on a project and then it never sees the light of day. Funding runs out. Upper management changes direction and kills the project. Rock stars change their minds on a whim. Years ago the band Simply Red hired me to design an entire line of merch in the style of the artist Matisse. And at the last second they scrapped everything and did a photo of the singer instead. Ryan Adams asked me to design a series of classic punk t-shirts but using his name, and a classic Tony Hawk-style graphic, and then just stopped answering messages. You never know.

So, what happens to those designs? They sit in a folder on my computer forever in design purgatory. Some of these designs I’m super proud of and wish they had made it to the public eye. Some I know I missed the mark, and as much as I liked them, they weren’t the right design for the project. I get it. So I thought I would break the rules and show you some things that I worked on that never made it into the world. Logos, packaging, product designs, t-shirts, and more. Today, they get their time in the spotlight, only to go away again forever. Here are just a few…

Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Thievery…

Over the years I have seen designs that look suspiciously like something I designed. Years ago there were companies ripping off the Airwalk shoe designs we were doing. Working for Tony Hawk, I have seen lots of things that exactly ripped off the Boom Boom HuckJam event designs I did…and other Tony-related things. But this one caught my eye not too long ago and it’s just sort of funny. A bunch of guitar friends of mine used to get together to share our latest guitar acquisitions and partake of some good food and drink. We called it “Guitarbecue” and for awhile I had posted this 2-minute, hand-drawn logo on my website for one of the events. I have no idea how a guitar store in Germany would have seen it, but I feel like this is just too close to be coincidence.

Vibrosonic Merch

If you like what we do here at Vibrosonic Design International Headquarters & Taco Consumption, you might want to grab one of our cool hats or tees or hoodies or things. If you’ve ever done a Zoom call with me, you can bet I probably have the official Vibrosonic Design studio hat on. And I’ve been known to shamelessly wear Vibrosonic tees until the washing machine wears them out. We also still have the iconic Men Who Look Like Kenny Rogers tees available in a wide variety of colors. These make great gifts for your Uncle’s birthday.

Plus…all paintings still 50% off!

We sold some paintings after last month’s big 50% off sale, so we’re keeping it going. Just enter the code FEZ50 at checkout and you’ll get 50% off any of my paintings in my online store. That means the little ones are only $25! This might be a last chance on the paintings…get one now! (please).