The Weight of the Eight (WO8): The concept for the WO8 originated in about 1994. We formed a small company, selling cues, running tournaments, planning to open a poolroom, and we called it Atlas Billiards. A relative of mine was reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and I was always intrigued by the thought of replacing the world on Atlas? shoulders with a giant 8-Ball. I made my first crude sketch and had a graphic artist I knew, superimpose an 8-ball over the picture of Van Halen?s 5150 CD cover. It would take another decade before I finally decided to do something with this simple but intriguing concept. The WO8 is designed to show the gravity or significance of the 8-Ball in a typical bar room game. It also shows the burden or pressure often felt when trying to sink it when a match, game or tournament is on the line. Copyright © 2007 CutThroat Creations, LLC.The Weight of the Eight (WO8) Cavewoman:  I decided that I wanted a version with a woman holding up the Eight as well. I anticipated this design would appeal to women mostly, but have found that most of my male friends preferred this design for themselves, to the Atlas version. This version was done intentionally in contrast to the male version. The class and poise of the WPBA largely inspired it, particularly in the 90?s when I followed the pool scene much more closely. Pool had been riding the great wave of enthusiasm derived from The Color of Money and pro tournaments were frequently being televised. The men?s pro tour had been divided & hindered by infighting and power struggles. Conversely, the women maintained a unified front and a single-minded purpose to promote and progress their tour?s viability. The men?s tour split in two and the WPBA remained united and excelled, increasing their visibility at every opportunity. With great ambassadors such as, Eva Laurance, Jeanette Lee, Lorie Jon Jones, Allison Fisher, Vivian Villarreal and many others, the tour has become a model of stability. It is with these great achievements in mind, that the WO8 lady would not succumb to the pressure or The Weight of the Eight! Copyright © 2007 CutThroat Creations, LLC.Bark at the Nine:  This design was born from my attendance at the 1995 BCA trade expo in Las Vegas. A vendor there (I believe it was Kim Steel billiards) had a banner that featured several pool balls in space, representing planets. The nine ball looked like Venus floating there. Around that time, Ozzy Ozbourne?s album Bark at the Moon was fairly new. It was somewhere in that time frame that the first crude sketch of Bark at the Nine was drawn. In 2006, I commissioned a real artist to sketch the current version. Copyright © 2007 CutThroat Creations, LLC.My World:  Probably the simplest of all the designs, My World is a symbol of the infectious nature of pool. It seems that once you are hooked, your world revolves around the next journey to the table. This design was conceived in 2006 and was originally only going to feature the 2-Ball. I chose this ball because it looked most like the world and I wanted to do something other than the typical 8-ball & 9-Ball designs. I later decided to add the ?money balls? and will eventually incorporate all of them. Copyright © 2007, CutThroat Creations, LLC.The Calling:  This series came to me as I was driving home from work one day. I was thinking of different ways to showcase my logo and the Batman beacon popped into my head. Only this time, it would be my logo in the center. I then realized that I wanted a cityscape scene resembling Gotham City with the CTC beacon in the sky. Instead of calling Batman for help, it would symbolize a ?calling? to the pool table!When I research the beacon image, I came across a scene showing Batman on a cliff staring up at the beacon. I thought it would be cool to have a similar scene except with a guy standing, chalking his cue. To make it more of a ?pool? scene, I had the artist add an 8-Ball/9-Ball bursting out of the ground and the guy leaning his foot atop of it. Copyright 2007 CutThroat Creations, LLC. CutThroat Carl:  I wanted a mascot of sorts for CTC, so I had the artist create one for me. I gave a few suggestions, but mainly let him be creative. I did suggest a pirate and that was the character I ended up selecting. Carl will become a distinctive icon for CTC and will be making several appearances on future designs. Copyright © 2007 CutThroat Creations, LLC. The CTC Logo:  I turned to a longtime, childhood friend to help me with the logo. Jim is an extremely talented tattoo artist, so I trusted he would come up with something edgy. I knew I wanted to incorporate CTC into design and Jim dreamt up the rest. He gave me a solid sketch of it and I had a graphic artist friend from work (Dave) fine tune it and put it into digital form. The result is a distinctive identity for the company and a solid piece of art that will be prominent in all of the designs. Copyright 2007 CutThroat Creations, LLC. | |
No Doggin' It: The “No Doggin’ It” design was the result of an accident. I was playing around with different fonts for numbers when the paw font caught my eye. I thought that it might look kind of cool in a pool ball and then I thought about how common the phrase is with pool players. “Aww, I can’t believe I dogged that 9-Ball.” I hope it is a design that resonates with many pool players. | |
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| Humble Beginnings | |
We thought it may be fun to show the crude sketches that Brad drew when initially conceiving the designs that are now on display.
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