Things at the Kali home office in Morgan Hill, CA., have been a bustle over the past few weeks as our new designer, Alain Lanusse, has burst through the front door with a flurry of activity and a truckload of ideas.
"We're super excited to have someone of Alain's caliber helping us with all aspects of the brand," said Brad Waldron, founder and certified protectives Poindexter. "We have been focused on making the safest helmets on the market and it is exciting to have someone so focused on also making them cutting edge aesthetically."
Lanusse spent the last 17 years working down the street at Specialized and for the last five years, he was the Director of Graphics. He learned everything about product development, sales strategies, marketing strategies, and, of course, design and the design process.
He elevated the design team to be on par with some of the best brands in the world, across all industries, something he is most proud of along with the legacy he left behind. When he started, he was one of three graphic designers and by the time he left, he was director of the entire department, with his team expanding to close to a dozen designers. He helped create a world class design studio with the infrastructure needed to keep elevating. Not many designers get to lead the design department for a top brand in a billion dollar industry and the fact that he did it for 5 years is something he is very proud of.
When you first meet Alain you are immediately aware of his intensity and his passion. He has a focus about him that permeates everything he does and he is in the middle of taking a deep, deep dive into every aspect of Kali's design, from the colorways of the helmets to the color of our interior helmet sticker. No aspect of Kali's brand will go untouched by Alain's attention to detail.
"Specialized's loss is our gain," said Waldron. "It won't take long for even the layman to start to notice Alain's effect on the Kali brand. Things are getting very exciting around here."
