About
Jimmy Metyko, from Houston, Texas, has maintained his multi-faceted, successful career path in fields of photography, art, graphic design, fashion design, brand creation, development and marketing by the application of one simple strategy: staying ahead of the curve. And in some cases, even designing the curve.
Take, for example, his early work as an action sports photographer. Although a true Texas son who grew up hunting and fishing the region’s fields and streams Metyko also developed a passion for surfing along the state’s Gulf Coast beaches. He would turn this passion into a profession, becoming, while at the same time attending Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, California, one of the sport’s most influential photographers. While chronicling the nascent pro surfing scene in the early 1980s he was the first to focus on the move to develop aerial maneuvers, publishing the very first sequence of a completed ‘aerial’, an innovation that changed the way surfers looked at waves. In much the same way he helped revolutionize the inland sport of wakeboarding, working closely with the Father of Wakeboarding, Jimmy Redmon to capture on film the first wakeboard aerial flip, another game-changing move.
Staying ahead of the game also applied when he wasn’t behind the camera. Displaying a keen sense for the action sports market—understanding what people wanted—Metyko’s creative acumen and restless artistic energies were fostered into graphic design work for a number of major surf wear brands, including Blue Hawaii, Rusty, MCD, Hurley and Billabong—at one point providing fifty percent of the iconic brand Billabong's graphic needs.
On this trajectory it was inevitable that Metyko should create a brand of his own and this he did in a big way. Literally. Applying the same ‘feel’ for what the market wanted Metyko dropped the traditional logo-oriented t-shirt graphic approach in favor of an inspirational lifestyle tone. The result was Big Ball Sports, established in 1992, which began its first year as an $800,000 a year sports lifestyle t-shirt and apparel company. By year two it was earning $8,000,000, by year three $25,000,000. Averaging over 3.5 million t-shirt sold per year, including its wildly popular “…Is Life” series, by 1995 Big Ball Sports was ranked as the sixth largest sports apparel company in the country by DNR. Small wonder that in 1996 Metyko was recognized by Earnest and Young as the Up and Coming Entrepreneur of the Year.
Following the sale of Big Ball Sports to an ongoing public concern in 1998 Metyko has continued to inhabit the creative space where enterprise meets artistic vision. He later founded The Outdoor and Leisure Company, a private label operation designing and eventually selling between 500,000 and 1,000,000 t-shirt and sportswear units annually for major department stores and sports chains, like JCPennies, Macy's, Nordstrom, Academy Sports and Outdoors, Sports Authority and Dick's Sporting Goods. In conjunction with the company u3d Apparel, Metyko helped develop a patented silicon modeled decoration process to be combined with water base ink.
From 2010 through 2014 he helmed YURbrands, a complete turn key design, manufacturer, branding and marketing company for high-end t-shirt and apparel product lines, overseeing operations that included designing, dying, cutting, sewing and screen-printing a wide range of garments. At the same time providing freelance graphic work for a variety of collegiate and major sports leagues, including the Major League Baseball and National Hockey Players Associations.
In 2015 Metyko’s 18 year-old daughter Melissa began attending the University of Texas in Austin Film School program and this precipitated another big move. That same year Metyko and his wife Minh Metyko left Houston to begin work, respectively, as creative director and children’s clothing designer for College Station’s Aggieland Outfitters, a four-store chain and the country’s largest purveyor of Texas A&M University merchandise. As creative director, he showed the same acumen for collegiate marketing—print, web and social— that he did when helping spearhead the big surf wear boom of the 1980s and the mainstream sport t-shirt bonanza of the 1990s and beyond.
It’s this potent combination of creative vision, marketing savvy and logistical expertise that has always set Jimmy Metyko apart regardless of the era. Here is a man that is completely comfortable performing a variety of essential entrepreneurial tasks: developing, designing, producing and marketing. More importantly, however, is his ability to innovate in a way that authentically reflects authority, eloquence and expertise. The perfect combination for staying ahead of the curve.