Al Boardman
“The school I went to in Reading owned an outdoor pursuits adventure centre and I was lucky enough to go there on a couple of occasions when I was 12 and 13. I wasn't particularly academic at school, so after going to the adventure centre I found I really enjoyed climbing and happened to be pretty good at it. So I convinced my parents to enroll me in a summer rock climbing course at this British adventure centre.”
“During that summer course I got completely hooked. After that I just kind of learnt off my own bat, because at that time climbing was a pretty niche sport and there was not that many people doing it. I also had to travel to the mountains in northern England and Scotland to climb as Reading was very flat. Since then I have climbed a lot in Europe and have spent quite a lot of time in the Himalayas and central Asia."
“My Brother was very good at school. He went down a very traditional route where he studied hard and got really good grades, did great at University and now runs his own successful graphic design company in London.”
“I on the other hand think I am pretty unconventional! I am almost exclusively self taught. During my teenage years and early twenties I really got into climbing and mountaineering which is where I started to find my feet. I spent a lot of time travelling around the world climbing. At about age 22 I decided I wanted to go to university."
"I was really lucky to get in because I didn't have any necessary qualifications. Fortunately for me a lecturer took a punt on me and I got in. I started studying Geography, but I didn't last long, as I soon found it a little bit boring and realized it really wasn’t for me.”
“Interestingly the studio where we had the lectures was the same studio as the graphic design department, so I made a lot of friends on that side and was really envious of them. I became more interested in learning from them and ended up gate crashing their lectures! I actually tried to change courses but I wasn’t allowed so after two years I just dropped out.”
“What I did was work in a climbing shop that sold rock climbing and mountaineering equipment and would save up enough money to go climbing in The French Alps in the summer. It was great as I had a passion for climbing and knew all the gear and products, it was really easy and I met lots of great people."
"During this time I had a really lucky break, the company I was working for are quite a big company in the UK and produced a bi-annual catalog. They were looking for someone to help out with the design in their head office. I could use a mac, it paid well and I was good enough”
“So I managed to convince them I could do the job and they offered it to me! After a year I got promoted to senior designer and after that I became the studio manager, which was really bizarre! It was just good timing because the company was going through a lot of change. I was very passionate about the job and the company, I knew a lot about the products they sold and worked hard.”
“After that I thought ‘I could do this on my own;' really because I wanted more flexibility so I could go away climbing whenever I wanted to! So I set up my own graphic design business called the company Flirt Design."
“Most of Flirt’s clients were all in the outdoor industry. I ran that for six years and found increasingly I just wanted to travel and climb more. So I took a step back and employed some people that could run the business, but it all started to become very messy."
“At the same time I had just started climbing with some new friends and did a couple of expeditions with them that I filmed. I had started to develop an interest in filming and made a couple of films about climbing that had done reasonably well in some niche climbing film festivals! So, along with a small team of friends, we made a short fictional film about a box in the Indian Himalaya.”
“I quickly realized that I was not that good at the filming siding of things but found I was really interested in post production. I just found that the post skills came really easy to me, partly because I had a mac background. Certainly when it came to the creative I found that came relatively easily to me. It was then I discovered motion graphics."
“I invited a really good friend of mine, who happened to be a sound man to be involved in Snowline with me. One of our existing client was very flexible. We were doing all of their usual graphic design based stuff and we pitched a series of videos to them, without having much experience of producing videos!"
"They took a punt and that was my first real commercial job, we made videos on how to choose the right equipment and some instructional videos. They turned out to be really successful. From there Snowline quickly developed a name for itself within the outdoor industry and everything just really skyrocketed and that continues today.”
“The company my wife works for, offered her a position in the company's U.S. headquarters in Chicago. It was just one of those opportunities that you couldn’t turn down, so we moved out to Chicago in August 2012.”
“At the time I was still running Snowline, which became increasingly difficult, especially as I was heavily involved in the client side of the business. I love creating motion graphics and didn’t want to be that guy that just did meetings and invoices. Especially from 4000 miles away! So I resigned as a director to focus on doing what I love - it was a bit of a gamble.”
“When I came to Chicago I had no clients and no work from the U.S. Thankfully, that quickly changed and now I’m doing lots more work with creative agencies and also direct with businesses here too, which is great. I love dealing with people, so working with other creatives and teams on projects and then going away and doing the work, is fantastic. Coming to Chicago has really allowed me to do this.”
"My drive to go rock climbing and mountaineering isn’t quite what it was, but I still really enjoy the outdoors. There aren’t many mountains here in Chicago, so I’m excited to explore more of the U.S. and the huge diversity it offers. There is so much to do and see in Chicago though it’s an incredible place to live and I am thoroughly enjoying my new life here.”