Julie-Ann’s (aka: J-Bird) passions for art and surfing started at a very young age. When J-Bird was a child, her mom did not give her coloring books, but instead gave her blank sheets of paper with pencils, crayons, paints and told her to create from her imagination. She would create art for hours and was completely content.
She is originally from New England, and grew up just 5 minutes away from the ocean in Hampton, NH (13 miles of coast). In 2010, she relocated with her husband, Jacob, to San Francisco, CA and now lives only a block from the oceans edge.
J-Bird went to Northeastern University in Boston, MA and earned her degree in Graphic Design. After she graduated, she worked for different interactive agencies as a web designer; eventually, deciding to pursue design consulting full-time. Around that time in 2009 she created a small clothing company, BirdSwell (www.BirdSwell.com).
Her designs are a combination of art, design and surfing. Her goal is to create unique, simple, yet fresh surf designs using abstracted organic elements of surfing and the ocean. She includes a bird in all her design because it represents her, a bird’s free spirit, and because birds are part of the surfing and ocean experience.
“There is no other comparable feeling of flying down the face of a sweet wave and being in rhythm of the strength of the ocean.”
J-Bird’s surf travels include: New England, Northern and Southern California, Florida, Hawaii, Costa Rica, Philippines, Mexico, Ireland
