BLACK CAP DESIGN STUDIO :: Product Design

WHO WE ARE

Kristofer Henry / Principal: Born and raised in East Greenville, Pennsylvania with an assortment of wholesome family mealtimes, holidays at grandparents, Lego's, elementary school, sandboxes, contraband fire building, Star Blazers, found and scrounged fireworks, deep end splash contest buffoonery, rough housing, window breaking, bruises, stitches, skinned knees, middle school, endless baseball games, tackle football, skateboards, dirt jumps, banana seats, testing and more testing, recess, summer vacation, spitting contests, snowball fights, drawrings, cartoons and anything else I could get my hands on in the name of fun.

Then off to college with big ideas of getting a degree in the sciences at Penn State University. I soon found out that was definitely not for me and a complete re-evaluation of what the heck I was doing was in order. Something clicked when I started pursuing things creatively and scheming how I could turn what I loved into what I would spend the rest of my life doing. The search was on and I was in hot pursuit. A BA in "light metals" from the College of Arts and Architecture was the result-a fancy pants way of saying I had the qualifications to be a Silversmith/Goldsmith. I apprenticed for a time but the tediousness of the work started to lose its shine and I recalled a professional title I had stumbled upon while looking for inspiration: INDUSTRIAL DESIGNER. This sounded good and I had to find out more-which I did and found out that it was painfully expensive. I interned for Bicycling Magazine and helped out with Photo shoots at Mountain Bike Mag. along the way but thanks to an overly generous grandfather who insisted on paying my way (thanks Pop) I ended up at the Rhode Island School of Design's Industrial Design Program. This gave me the tools and the training I had been looking for and it was off into the shoe industry batting for the likes of Reebok and Converse. The corporate thing took its toll and I decided it was time to hit the road and start something of my own: BLACKCAP Studio was born.

Somewhere along the way I've had the great opportunity to meet wonderful people, be inspired by the best of friends and work on projects in which I take tremendous pride. Bauer, Brine, Cole Haan, Converse, E*Thirteen Components, Fuel Belt, Nemo Equipment, Phoenix Multisport, Pro-Cut USA, Ted Wojcik Custom Bicycles, and an assortment of others have all believed in me enough to allow me to design product and graphic alike. And that's just the start really as I see it. A life long dream of building bicycles has been realized not too long ago with the start of my side project 44 Bikes, and there's just so much more to come. I can't wait to get started..

BCS - DESIGN OR DIE

When we first started out we needed a name. We made lists, listened to our favorite songs in search of inspiration, read books, took pictures, made more lists, toured the intraweb hoping for a domain that was available and came upon dead end after dead end. Fed up we decided to listen to some Johnny Cash. Then it hit us. We asked ourselves this single question: If we were a ship fitted for the high seas of design with no port but the open sea between us and the horizon whilst marauding the queens navy, what flag would we fly? Who else but BLACKCAP Studio!. With the skull cap and shield hoisted high, the seas of design will never be the same.