Fly Black Bird — More Than A Surfboard Edition 1

Maybe it is because Spring is finally showing its face with the first sunny days behind us in The Netherlands, or it is just because of some excellent milestones celebrating the sport we discovered recently; what ever the reason, recently we have become slightly obsessed with surfing (again). It remains without a doubt the most aesthetic sport, both as a discipline and source of inspiration, with a persisting unique lifestyle, continuing to be deeply engrained in global culture — one of the few real subcultures left. After Taschen released the highly remarkable ‘Surfing. 1778 — 2015.‘ last month, now we discovered another remarkable book celebrating the sport in all its richness named ‘Fly Black Bird — More Than A Surfboard Edition 1’. Released last year by Portugese surf enthusiast Pedro Falcão, who started Fly Black Bird as a surfboard brand in 2013 and decided to mark his love for the still young sport in Portugal with the brand’s first book. With its 228-color pages, the soft cover book was designed perfectly, showing a great balance between imagery and text, which are both in English and Portuguese. It features contributions by a lot of – for us – new names for Portugal, but also familiar creatives as Moderate Distractions, the great John Witzig and illustrator João ‘Capitão’ Neto.  As it’s unlikely we’ll ever skillfully step on a surfboard ourselves, ‘Fly Black Bird — More Than A Surfboard Edition 1’ helps us continue dreaming about this unparalleled sport.

The sea is one of our greatest assets; it’s a source of energy an joy, it’s an encounter, it’s wisdom and it can also be the opposite, but it’s always a highly necessary asset.

Fly Black Bird was founded by graphic designer Pedro Falcão in 2013. The brand works as a project through which he and his team create unique boards, designed, painted and built by hand, aiming to raise the surfboard design to the level of an object of art and design. Inspired by the richness of surf culture, it was decided to add the “More than a Surfboard” subtitle to the main brand, showing the ambition to be more than just surfboards. Because of this Pedro and his team feel no limitations, producing diverse products from t-shirts, fins for all kinds of surfboards; surfboard bags; bags; books; and whatever they think that makes sense. Through all of his FBB endeavors the bigger goal set for the brand is to deliver a contribution to the community and the culture of surfing in Portugal (where it is still growing as a sport) and even abroad, in which this remarkable book clearly forms a great step in the right direction.

Fly Black Bird appeared mainly from the desire to contribute to the surf culture in Portugal, where the trend of modern meets the past.

Order ‘Fly Black Bird — More Than A Surfboard Edition 1’ here