The story of swirling guitars starts back in the early 1980 with a man named Darren Johansen of the company ATD which stood for About Time Designs.
darren johansen of ATD swirl fame
Darren took an art form that had existed for centuries and applied it in a new an innovative way.
Legend has it that he first put the finish on a set of drums then he fashioned a foam board cutout of a guitar to see what his finish would look like on a guitar? He must have thought it looked great as as he sent a photo of his foam creation to the staff at Fender.
To Darren surprise Fender asked him to swirl a few guitar for an upcoming NAMM show. Darren swirled the guitars and with days to spare got them finished for the show. Upon showing the guitars to the fender reps, they asked him to not show any of the other vendors at the show the guitars; the meeting was behind close doors. Darren agreed upon them giving him an order to produce 300 guitars. Below are a couple of examples of them.

swirled strats bowling ball finish

The first 300 bowling ball finish guitars were swirled by Darren and assembeled by Fender on Standard Stratocasters. The guitar were finished in 1984 and sent to the dealer in 1985. Just at this time Fender was in buyout negotiations with CBS so the guitars were no not such a priority and when Fender finally sorted their internal negotiations out they discontinued the Standard Stratocaster model instead introducing 1950s and 1960s Reissue.

The bowling ball strats as they have come to be know were originally called the Marble strats and teles's There were 250 Strats produced and 50 telecasters. Fender never added the finish to their custom catalouge.


Back in around 1988-1989 Steve Vai was put in contact with Darren Johansen via a mutual friend. Steve asked Darren to swirl him a few guitars, which he did with his new improved technique. Steve Loved them! At that same time Steve had made his move to Ibanez and a few years earleir developed the Ibanez Jem and its seven string equivilent the Ibanez Universe. This is how the Ibanez swirl painted guitars were born.

This Ibanez Universe (UVMC) was the first Ibanez guitar to feature the swirled finish.

Steve Vai was photographed with his ATD swirled Ibanez 7 String for the front cover of his seminal CD entiteled "Passion and Warfare" The swirl colors were yel/red/green and black. This swirl color combination is now refered to as a PAW (Passion And Warfare) swirl.

There is a lot more to the story of the original UV used on the cover shoot for the album. The Guitar had a handle cut into it, but as the Universe was not to have one, the album cover was airbrushed to hide the handle.

This guitar, this CD and this amazing soloful artist are responsible for selling lots of guitars. The Record, the guitars looks and it's sound is why I love them.





The PAW Swirls were on the Ibanez Universe (7 strings)
PAW(Passion and Warefare)
1990-1993 BBBBB1038 were made





The GMC Swirls were on Ibanez Jems (6 strings)
GMC= Green Multicolor
Made between 1992- 1993
BBBBBOnly 366 were ever made


The PMC Swirls were again on Ibanez Jem Guitars
PMC= Purple Multicolor
made between 1992-1993
Only 271 were ever made

 gmc pmc paw swirls
DNA SWIRLS
DNA SWIRLS

To me the DNA swirls are Darrens best work. The colors in the swirls work great together.
There were only 300 official Jem DNA guitars produced by Ibanez in the year 2000. If you look at the 18 examples above (Pics supplied by Rich Harris of Ibanez Rules) none of the swirls look like each other. Darrens style had become so diverse. Some guitars may share some small similarities but all are totally individual.

I often get asked to swirl people a DNA and the customer send a pic of a guitar they like the look of. When it's a DNA then it is the below pic 9 times out of 10.
dna swirl
If you give me 300 goes one might look a little like it, I can only try.

darren johansen of ATD about time designs

In 2004 Darrens Compnay (ATD) was hit by 2 Hurricans! After 20 years (1984-2004) in the business Darren is nolonger swirling guitars he has moved onto other business opportunities.

After swirling over 2000 guitars and countless custom swirls he has left behind a lasting legacy, as I said before.
Credit where credit is due.