About Huk Lab
Mission Statement
Huk Lab aims to help build the sport of disc golf positively by creating unique graphic apparel and gear that allow disc golfers worldwide to identify with this great sport both on and off of the course.
We strive to emulate a business model that achieves a balance between our planet, people, players and profit. A sustainability that begins with our business plan and continues throughout every product we create.
We will endeavor the build the culture of disc golf by designing and selling Huk Lab Fly Gear and sponsoring tourneys and events.
Who we are
You could say we’re kids who never wanted to leave the playground. Today we find ourselves exploring the grand playgrounds that lie from mountain to sea. It is within and alongside the rivers that connect the two that we feel a deep connection to nature and our own mind, body and spirit.
Huk Lab is an action laboratory. We define the slang verb huck as putting your all into something- to go big or throw big. Crushing a drive through tall stands of trees to a disc catcher. Launching a cliff in freshly driven powder. Boofing a kayak at the lip of a falling curtain of water. Throwing deep against the defense on an ultimate field. In the laboratory, we step to the tee box and test theories of disc flight. We slide across an eddyline and feel our hull plane on a green wave to set up the next trick we'll perfect. We dream new lines through tree line or a rapid. Practice makes permanent and the huck lifestyle is an inner river flowing through the laboratory of life, love and sport.
Our company is a comprised of outdoor enthusiasts dedicated to creating stylish graphic disc golf apparel in a sustainable manner. We work hard, play hard and dream vibrantly. We believe small is beautiful. As we spread our wings, we aim to temper growth by leaving a smaller footprint. Sustainability is part of our company ethos and we aim to build an apparel brand that embraces wisdom and consciousness, not simply profit.
We call our products 'Fly threads' and ‘Fly Gear.’ Durable clothing and gear made for going big and throwing big. Portland, Oregon and the Great Pacific Northwest is our home, which we consider to be one big, beautiful laboratory of huck. Please respect and protect every course and natural playground where you huck by leaving no trace and bending no branch. Travel light and share our vision as the kaleidoscope culture of the huck lifestyle continues spinning.
Remember, there’s only one way to build skill in any huck sport…keep on huckin’!
Design Philosophy
From first sketch to first flight, we strive to make every Huk Lab design timeless, natural and beautiful. Something that evokes a sense of authenticity and integrity. Something that reflects our amazement and amusement at the natural world around us, with it's intermingling of colors, texture and light. Something that makes you stop to wonder and continue to discover.
No curve is arbitrary, no placement per chance. Ideas creep up and sneak up on us from dark corners or burst forth in waves of blooming color. It's never the same but it's always a journey. Words and expressions turn into sketches. Sketches get inked, scanned, pushed, pulled, squeezed teased and wrung out. What you see is where we land and say "That's it!"
Huk Lab designs invite you to participate, not just spectate; to check your lie and see a line to the prize; to connect with the sport and culture that helps define who you are through function and style that performs, inspires and delights.
The Trademark TriFly Symbol
The design for our trademark TriFly symbol began to take shape in 2002. Pages of rough sketches strived to yield a mark that embodied the motion and emotion of hucking. A disc gliding through the air, a skate wheel turning, a kayaker linking ends in a hydraulic, or more simply... the helical flow of water.
Along with the physical elements, we hoped to create a mark that would represent some metaphysical characteristics. A union of the mind, body and spirit necessary to hit a pressure filled or improbable putt. Attaining the focus to meet a challenging line through the water, be it frozen or liquid. Waking up to life and embracing it for all the potential in one single day, today.
We continued to refine sketches and ponder. We poured over pages of motifs and were struck by the similarity of one of our early rough sketches to a centuries old Japanese motif called large commas. It was a simple design that evoked a sense of motion. Along with the mental, physical, emotional and spiritual elements in mind, we used this motif as a building block. After considering some 40 different variations, the Huk Lab trademark TriFly took flight.
The TriFly symbol is comprised of three wings joined at the center, with a subtle second dimensional element of three small kites that move the leading edge of each wing. The three wings joined represent a union of mind, body and spirit. Each contour allows the eye to continue unobstructed to the next, suggesting motion yet remaining still.
" . . . It is in the nature of man to both think and express himself symbolically. Moreover, the power of symbols is magnified when a society has broadly shared experiences, a deep knowledge of its cultural traditions, and common sentiments about those experiences and traditions. The fact that these conditions exist in Japan to a striking degree has insured that the country continues to enjoy a cultural life meaningfully enriched by the use of symbols."
~Merrily Baird Symbols of Japan