Offshore Snow Shapes – Snowboard Craft That’s Head High & Glassy

Offshore team rider, Charlie Steinbacher, high above the lip in Otaru, Hokkaido, Japan Image:: Keats

This story originally appeared in Transfer issue #16, find all our back issues HERE…

Transfer | Alex Horvath

Up until now, the concept of an “Aussie snowboard company” hasn’t always garnered the same kind of respect as the bigger global manufacturers. Traditionally, their presence in the market has been short-lived, as brand after brand has hit the scene with enthusiasm, but then fallen into the abyss thanks to a lack of buying power and very little support from a highly skeptical and brand-loyal market. But what if I told you that the newest kid on the block was actually at the forefront of the renaissance movement in custom, handcrafted bespoke snowboard manufacturing?

Enter Josh Monin: snowboard shaper, rad-dad, director and founder of Offshore Snow Shapes; a 100% grassroots Aussie snowboard brand that has exploded onto the global stage using nothing more than some skillful Instagramin’, strong art direction and one hell of a positive attitude.

I was lucky enough to spend time in Japan with Josh this past winter, and I have to say, the first thing that struck me about the guy was his absolute hard-nosed passion and dedication for snowboarding. Like most Aussies, snowsport wasn’t the prime focus of his life growing up: “I grew up in the small NSW coastal town of Shoal Bay. It’s a town that’s obsessed with the ocean, surfing, skating and punk rock.” But like most of us, his intro into the shred-world was through an early family holiday, “My first trip was over 20 years ago, during a family vacation to Charlotte Pass. I was already hooked on surfing and skating and I had no desire to ski. I have very open-minded and supportive parents; they allowed me to try snowboarding. I have some great memories of walking up the lift line at Charlotte Pass, and learning how to ride. Once I showed them I could control the board, mixed with my persistence to hike up and not conform to the ‘you have to ski first’ mentality, they bought me a lift pass. I still remember how stoked I was to get on that first chair. It was so liberating and I remember thinking the mountains were like the longest wave I had ever seen.”

Josh’s story is a familiar one, “That first experience led to a lifetime of chasing winters. Nearly every decision and life choice since has been based around snowboarding,” he says. “When I was a grommet I remember writing a countdown on a calendar to show how many days there were till the following winter and then waking each day feeling excited to cross off another day that kept me from snowboarding. Addicted is an understatement.”

Monin, waist deep in ‘product testing’ mode. Image:: Keats

Fast-forward the tape to today, and Josh has now established himself as a successful graphic designer and snowboard industry entrepreneur. His background in the creative industry really helped Josh gain the momentum he needed. He explains: “I am really lucky that my main trade is as a freelance graphic designer. This let me travel and spend as much time riding as possible. I always believed the richest person was the one who spent the most time in the white and green room.”

Balancing this kind of lifestyle may be tough for some, but as Josh told me, it was the combination of family commitments, growing up and his need to be around the mountains that led to the birth of Offshore: “The commercial side of both design and snowboarding only really crept into my life once my partner and I had our first child, Sonny. Once our second – Dee Dee – was born, a need to turn my hedonistic lifestyle into something of greater substance started to take hold; hence the birth of Offshore. I needed something to keep me tied to the mountains, something that would hopefully allow myself and my family to snowboard for the rest of our lives.”

That something he refers to was found in an unlikely place. Born out of simply identifying a gap in the market, Offshore has now solidified its place as Australia’s – and possibly the World’s – most progressive custom snowboard brand. “Offshore came about more out of necessity than anything else,” states Josh. “Because I’m so passionate about a lifestyle that’s based around the art of riding a board, the design and construction aspect of the sport has always appealed to me. Before I had the idea for Offshore, I’d been making wooden hand-shaped pow surfers in Hokkaido, which is where I have been basing myself over the past 12 Northern Hemisphere winters. These boards worked great in deep pow, but I wanted a board I could ride all over the mountain, in any conditions, that was made using high-grade materials. Being hand-shaped and not mass produced, and maintaining the right core values was the most important thing to me.”

After seeing the fate of people who’d previously tried and failed to kick-start successful home-grown businesses, it would be understandable if Josh was to be deterred from pursuing his dreams for the company. But clearly Josh knew that his goals were different: “Offshore was never started purely out of financial gain or because feasibility studies showed the business would work in a dollar and cents kind of way. I feel the question isn’t whether the snowboard industry needs more core companies or not, but more so that they are important to its survival”, explains Monin. “I think it was a combination of my punk-rock background and seeing the ski industry at first shun us, then turn to us in their darkest days, and then eventually use and capitalise on us. That led to me wanting to be apart of the next generation of board companies that are rising up against the ‘man’.”

Just like what happened in the surf industry, whereby many boards are now machine-made ‘pop-outs’, the great majority of snowboards are now manufactured using methods that place great importance on profit margins, rather than the core values of quality, sustainability and integrity. The core ethos of Offshore Snow Shapes echoes Josh’s sentiments that these values are the key to ensuring the long-term viability of his brand. “The standardisation of snowboard production, mixed with non-snowboarders controlling these decisions has really led to the heart and soul of snowboard manufacturing to disappear,” he laments. “Most importantly, it seems that the creativity involved in the process has departed from a lot of the big players out there today.”

So how does he manage to keep true to his core beliefs, yet still maintain a business model that ensures Offshore’s longevity? “I feel there should be a relationship between the shaper and the rider. Your board shaper should be able to communicate with you, learn how you ride, and learn from your experiences in order to develop a custom board that is perfect for you.” He answered. “There should be more emphasis put on the board you use for the lifestyle that you spend your whole life dreaming about, than purely just the graphic or the price tag. Just as snowboarding is a devotion to gaining pleasure, so should the actual art of constructing the boards we ride. I know when someone buys or rides an Offshore board, the first thing I think of isn’t dollar signs, but how I hope they enjoy the ride.”

Now that I think back, the best way to explain my time spent with Josh and his family would be ‘organic’. From the food we ate, to the friends we met, and the secret backcountry spots we frequented, there was a certain natural and free-spirited quality to their pace of life. I became curious as to how Josh felt about balancing the potentially earth-damaging process of creating snowboards, with his innate sense of connection to nature. “The snowboarding industry is like a double-edged sword. The products we create to enjoy the environment are at the same time hurting it. So I decided if I was going to put new products on the market, I had to do it in a way that was not going to cause more negative effects. No company is perfect, including Offshore, and so it is on the forefront of my objectives to continue to endeavour to make our footprint as small as possible, so we can all continue to enjoy deep snowfalls in winter. Hopefully we can encourage more companies to do the same, and inspire the next generation of snowboarders to make the most ethical and morally right decisions.”

While Offshore Snow Shapes has been making great in-roads into a tough and hard-to-crack industry, Josh recognises that there is a long road ahead to achieve his ultimate goals for the brand, “The future of Offshore is definitely unclear and that is how I like it. I know I will continue to produce boards, which hopefully people are stoked on and I hope it will add to the positive fabric that makes up snowboarding’s collective. I am definitely an example of what they call a ‘lifer’. I was snowboarding before it was considered ‘cool’ in the mainstream, and I will continue to do so for as long my body and the environment allows.”

With such a unique and interesting perspective on life and snowboarding as a whole, it’s no wonder that Josh’s brand has thus far been overwhelmingly well received. As the boards are unavailable through your local retailer, this has left many people wondering how they actually ride? If you’re hanging to try one, Josh has an answer for that, too: “I have a few plans for some limited release boards in the near future, and I’m also working on making it to a few resorts this Southern Hemisphere winter for a demo tour. I hope we can continue to grow our team of riders and artists and release a few extra shapes to the quiver next season. In saying all of that, my main hope for the future is cold, long winters, filled with super-deep pow days. See you all in the whiteroom!”