Tyler Quarles – A snowboard fanatic from North Vancouver

I’m excited for the opportunity to talk about a particular Canadian Designer that I admire deeply and is part of my inspiration for attending IDEA.

Tyler Quarles is a North Vancouver-born and raised kid such as myself and although I’ve only crossed paths with him a few times, he was always kind, humble and jovial. I first met him when I worked in the youth equipment department of North Shore Ski and Board in my early years of high-school.

Tyler worked at the shop as well occasionally and his father was one of the owners. I overheard that him and another staff member (both were a number of years older than myself) that they attended ECUAD for Design. I was very intrigued that both of these young men were able to merge their passions for Photography, Design and Creative expression with their love of Snowboarding and playing in the mountains.

Many years passed and the wheels of life turned, I toured the IDEA program many years ago and chose to pursue other endeavors. Eventually I crossed paths with my now girlfriend and found out she had been friends with Tyler and that he had gone on to attend the IDEA program and was now successfully doing Design work for a variety of clients.

I was quite inspired and felt my intuition steering my compass towards this prestigious program. And I dug a little deeper into Mr Quarles’ work. His body of work is quite impressive. He has touched a variety of Branding projects such as the popular and slick modern styling of Kin Kao Thai Restaurant. Been successful with Art direction and Publication design for KingSnow Snowboarding Magazine. Started an outerwear company with his close friend “Baro Drywear”, and designed the Olympic Canadian Snowboard Team’s outerwear for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

He is known for not just for his design work, but also for maintaining the positive outlook that I know of him many years ago. And I aspired to embody that approach as well as create polished creative content that merged my passions, just as Tyler had done.