While spectating at the U.S. Open in Stratton, Vermont, in 1994 with his family, Banks felt like he’d arrived at the holy grail of snowboarding. He walked into the Burton demo tent and asked who created Burton’s board graphics. The answer? A design firm that at the time was called JDK. “At that exact moment I told myself, ‘I have to work there. There are no other options in my mind,’” says Banks. With that, his course was set. He studied graphic design at the Maine College of Art and landed the internship of his dreams at JDK. “Seeing the amount of talent and style in each department had an enormous effect on me,” he says. After that, Burton hired him to work as a T-shirt graphics designer.
Banks later moved to San Francisco and then Portland, Oregon, and launched his own freelance graphics studio that he called Venom Thunder. “I wanted to come up with a studio name that sounded like a band name,” Banks says. “I’ve never pursued playing a musical instrument seriously, but I always wanted to be in a band. Music has been a giant influence and obsession my whole life.” Over the years, he contributed apparel graphics for brands like Old Navy, The North Face, Marmot, Salomon, Bonfire, Nike SB, Nike Snowboarding, and Adidas Skateboarding.