Stepping inside Snowboarder Magazine

25 Oct, 2009

It’s easy to imagine that snowboard publications are massive but in reality the people behind our favorite words, photos and events are a lot more home grown than you’d expect.  Snowboarder has a huge name in the industry and continues the tradition of the passion of riding within a mix of written content and photograph evidence.

The Snowboarder Magazine office was the second stop on the California adventure to visit their office in San Juan Capistrano.  It was hard to imagine that just off I-5 lies a major player for snowboard magazines and an editor at the helm of the ship that many consider an icon in snowboarding.

The crew was at lunch when I came by the office, so Pat swung back to pick me up and we headed to the local pizza place for their Wednesday $1 pizza’s before heading into the Snowboarder Magazine office to get the full tour.

Snowboarder Magazine shares an office with other action sports publications like Powder, Skateboarder among other names.  In the back of the office lies the warehouse that stores all the archives of the publications.

When you walk upstairs and step into the Snowboarder world there’s no question about where you are.

The Snowboarder Magazine boards line the walls

You can take your pick of the latest Snowboarder Magazines that might have missed your mailbox.  I am a subscriber and always keep my copies of magazines because they are always a point of reference in snowboarding.

Inside the Snowboarder office, the staff busy with work

Inside Photo Editor Ryan “Huggy” Hughes office

Huggy, Pat, myself and T-bird sat in Huggy’s office to discuss the magazine which gave me a good glimpse into what separates them from the other publications and the mass change that occurred with photos within snowboarding to the digital age.  We looked at the shots from Superpark and discussed how shots get into each publication.

Before each magazine comes out, it’s printed and seen on paper to go through multiple processes before it hits mailboxes and newstands.  I got to check out the upcoming Superpark feature and a women’s feature with Annie and MFR coming out.

Walking into Pat Bridges office its no surprise to see a cluster of snowboard memorabilia lining the room, the snowboards, the artifacts he’s collected and what Pat finds worthy is always interesting to see.  He’s no question “the Eye” in snowboarding and with a distinct eye for riders and what makes Snowboarder different than other magazines, he continues to lead the way.

The Pat Bridges board collection

All ready to be ridden at any moment this season, no matter how old

During the sit down time with Bridges, T-bird and Huggy there was a mention of me being a Guestbook entry.  Since they launched the Guestbook, it’s been one of the features I constantly check out at  Snowboarder Mag because they have access to so many snowboarders that come by the offices and being able to get a Q/A that normally wouldn’t make the print magazine now can be online.

I went back to Snowboarder later in the evening to fill out the Guestbook survey and get my photo taken.  The guestbook is now up on Snowboarder Magazine with my handwritten answers.

Huge thanks to Pat Bridges for showing me around and the staff for being amazing!  It was great to see behind such a well-known snowboarding publication and the look behind the scenes at Snowboarder Magazine.

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