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Really good post! I run a skateboard company and we use your apps everyday. It’s nice to see your take on Skateboard Graphics.

I’ve been looking for that Sean Cliver Ray Underhill graphic for a while. Broke my elbow riding that skateboard!

Great post!

I’ll never forget one of my first introductions to a graphic production program on a computer, me and some cousins printed out a Powell & Peralta design on a dot matrix printer at my uncle’s house. That was totally rad, dude.

Very cool, thanks for sharing Jamie.

I’m not a skater but I’ve taken my little sons to Dept. of Skate, an indoor skatepark in Portland, OR, a bunch of times, and it’s always packed. The next generation, obviously, loves to skate.

Love the Chocolate.

Wow, definitely sad news.

I love looking at old skateboarding stuff. I saw a shrink-wrapped original Caballero in a store window recently and couldn’t believe it.

I think it would be cool to find some mint g-bones wheels and use them as paper weights :)

Thanks for the trip down memory lane! The Lance Mountain tribal board will always be considered my favorite ride.

I used to skate too. Whenever I start work on designing a product logo I create a sheet of logos I want to use for inspiration/influence, and skateboard/clothing brands always feature.

They’re not exactly Saul Bass, but inspirationally succinct all the same.

Oh by the way, has anyone noticed how common plastering laptops with stickers is these days? It really reminds me of well-loved skateboard decks!

Wow! I use to draw those designs on my school notebooks. Amazing to see the original Tony Hawk again. Why no Hosoi?

Love it. Jim Phillips is still one of my great heroes. I used draw the screaming hand by heart on everything. Copying those graphics taught me how to draw. I’ve been skateboarding since I was 11 (32 now ouch!) and I believe it’s helped me to cultivate a no-limits type self training regimen.

As Johnny Rad said, “Frontside Grind, Anytime”

Great post – I am 34 and I still skate as much as I can (kids and company and all).

I give a presentation to cities showing how skate culture breeds entrepreneurship. It’s important to understand why we need public skateparks beyond just the “get kids off the street” argument.

Skate graphics/imagery definitely shaped my drive as a young artist. But the messages also sank in – and from that I wonder why you left out Alien Workshop as a driver of image/ideas?

Their videos/graphics had multi-layered messages that seem timeless now. In 1996 I had a “Vote Pro Clone” bumper sticker that spoofed the Life/Choice movements. Who knew that it would actually be a real issue now!

Some of my fondest memories were back in the 1980’s and skating. My first board was a Mike McGill – the skull with the snake wrapped around. There was nothing more thrilling than having my Dad take me to the skate shop and letting me pick one out. The memories are flowing in right now… I had a pink Tony Hawk, blue Caballero, mini-Lance Mountain… the list goes on. I think I’ve watched “The Search For Animal Chin” about a million times!

Those were the days… wake up at 8:00 in the morning and skate downtown ALL DAY until midnight – every day.

And how ironic, my very last board, was a white Underhill with the purple chain on the bottom.

Thanks for taking me back in memory lane!

Is Ray Barbie around still?

Ahhhh…. thanks JD. I’ll check the link out.

Favorite Ray Barbee scene is from Ban This

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYKWli-pOU0

The art was always part of what attracted me to skateboarding. Glad to see Neil Blender getting some love. I was at the Del Mar Skate Ranch one time when he and Hosoi were there playing follow the leader all through the park. The speed and finesse with which these guys flowed from one piece of terrain to another was awesome.

Thanks for sharing the slides — made my day.

Wow, thanks for the blast from the past, Jamie!

I, too, have fond memories of my time skating. Like Jason, my first “real” board was a Vision Gator – the pink/black. I saved up my money and my parents took me to Hot Topic in Tucson to buy it. I picked out the wheels, tape, trucks, bearings – all after careful research and discussion with my friends. Loved that deck and was always fascinated by the art on skateboards at the time.

We were also really interested in covering our boards with skate stickers, usually lifted from clothing labels at the mall ;)

My board was stolen when I was a senior in high school and I wasn’t using it much anymore. I’d probably still ride some if I had it, but I never bothered to get another.

After buying my son 2 or 3 over the years that just collected dust he finally caught the skating bug this fall. Here’s a pic of him at the local skate park: http://twitpic.com/gdmu

I’m certain skate culture has made a big difference in who I am as a designer. Makes me want to get back into it.

JD, we used to watch that scene and pump ourselves up before going skateboarding.

I bought the DVDs of the Powell Peralta movies when they got released in the last couple of years, such great stuff.

Love it! You led me to doing a wistful write-up of my own history with skateboarding, I didn’t even get around to touching on the artwork component of it.

And since we’re sharing videos, my favorite skater in the New School days was Tom Penny. His introductory footage in 4-11 #2 was amazing, he did this HUGE kickflip over a pyramid, I hadn’t seen huge tricks before.

Peep his Etnies High Five part, this part was an early peak at how the teenie tiny flippy tricks of the 90’s were going to soon become simple huge tricks, Welcome to Hell style

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THoLAvh11Lo

I also have fond memories of skating, and artist/skater graphics. My favorite had always been Neil Blender http://www.disposablethebook.com/html/galleries/blender-gallery-html/blender.html

Thanks for this post, brought back some great memories of skating with my buddies back in the late 80’s and early 90’s.

-Jeff

@JD and George. We, too, used to watch that b/w scene from Public Domain immediately before going skating. But isn’t the track from a guy named Chuck Treece?

In our grom gang each kid had a favourite rider and company – bones, vision, schmitt stix – but mine was alva.

Great blast from the past.

I loved my Gonz board, and the graphics he did. Glad you included some of his decks.

Also had a Natas Kaupus mini deck. Usually he had panthers on his board. But on the mini it was a kitten drinking milk.

I really wish the web was around when I used to skate. Would have gone crazy over websites like http://popdeck.com/

Skater culture is kind of like hip hop. It’s really a lifestyle culture, encompassing so much more than just the sport. I love that cool art plays such a huge role in it.

Thanks for the Neil Blender reference. He always represented what I loved about skating in the 80’s. For some reason I’ve never forgotten a caption beneath a photo of him in a Thrasher magazine back around 1988: “Oblivious to contest rigors, Neil Blender lives in his own cartoon world.”

I think that’s what it’s all about.

A couple of those… really took me back to 6th grade.

I still miss my ramp that the insurance company made me take down.

you should get published and make this into one of those coffee table photo books

would be aaawesome

This article must be amended to include Hosoi!!! His board graphics were iconic.

Apologise if someone has already posted this but this short video summed up skating for me at the time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbPMjpoJXtU

Thanks for the post, Jamie. I second Ben about Popdeck! A good friend of mine has some personal deck designs worth checking out: http://blog.koelleart.com/2008/09/koelle-skateboards-rad/

I called my first company “Thrasher Technologies” – after the mag “Thrasher”. Could never skate but had a blast playing the music.

Thnx for the trip down memory lane :) I still mourn over the big box of VHS tapes that got lost while moving. Anyone remember the legendary Questionable and Virtual Reality videos from Plan B back when Mike Ternasky still lived…aaah the memories :)

Growing up in the action sport industry and helping develop graphics for products there was more to the transitional design change of Skulls and Cross Bones and the Evil Cartoon and then ultimately art.

When skate boarding became very popular in in the 1980’s it was very “Thrasher” and followed the design conventions of punk and heavy metal. This was the the critical mass period. Then skateboarding went underground from the late 80’s to the mid nineties. This period is comparable to web 1.0 and 2.0. All the wannabes left and just the core die-hards stayed to define the next generation of brands that weren’t as concerned with the “skate or die” heritage.

Brand such as Blind, Droors, New Deal, Underground Element and World Industries defined the new reassurance. Built with a for us by us mentality. I look at 37signals as the perfect example of a web design company that was started during web 1.0 but then helped to redefine the industry during its resurgence of web 2.0. There are a ton of comparisons to draw upon there. For example DCSHOECOUSA was created by Ken Block and the original name is Droors Shoe Company.

To understand why the art work changed you have to understand the period of time that the reassurance took place. Big pants, graffiti, shaved heads, tiny wheels, no plastic guards, no pads . The second time around street was what it was about, the first time around it was about vert.

The artwork took on a novelty look for a few reasons. It started by knocking of well known logos and putting them on t-shirts. Then they moved to making cartoons that looked harmless but if you looked closer they were more provocative. Just like web 2.0 they couldn’t of cared less about the trademarks they violated. One graphic comes to mind of two well know cartoon characters having sex but without really paying attention parents never noticed. World Industry was the prime example of how do do this successfully.

Then another change took place. Wether in the influence of urban lifestyles or popular music skateboarding took on “Ghetto” look. New Brands like DC, Alphanumeric, and others were positioned to influence the urban style. This is where hiphop, skateboarding and athletics had combined into an entirely new look. That lasted from the late nineties into the first part of 00’s.

Then as then need to continually evolve a brand named Zero that took on the original heavy metal look, long hair, tight jeans. A throw back to the origins of skateboarding. The exact opposite to “Ghetto”. This was refereed to as “Hessian”. If you look up what that means it almost defines any young skateboarder you would see today.

“An unclean individual who attempts to portray himself as hypermasculine. Predominant in 1980s U.S.A. Common traits include dirty mullet hairstyle, pathetic facial hair, tight fitting acid-washed jeans, black vintage metal tee (cut-off sleeves optional), and “ticking-timebomb” demeanor.”

Unfortunately since then skateboarding has hit critical mass again and will need to go underground to washout the brands that are just cashing in. It is funny how it started and ended up in the same place. Now these brands have expanded into lifestyle companies that sell at your local Macy’s. That is a clear indicator that something new and original will emerge again.

My prediction with the rise of politics and uncertain times that Shepard Farley’s Obey Giant and propaganda like imagery that has meaning and is socially conscious will take hold. Just a slight modification to the origins of skateboarding with a more militant or protest twist. This is the first time in my lifetime I have ever seen teenagers where a picture of a presidential candidate on their t-shirts and that is a very bid deal. It means that kids are looking for something to believe in and I assure you that brands will begin to reflect this idea soon.

My, my, I had literally forgotten how neat, how COOL , skateboard graphics are . . . I wasn’t much of a skater, but I do have fond memories of discovering and exploring this very facet of it, the art, wow, age 11, mid 80’s, LA . . . thank you Jamie!

Good stuff. I grew up skating and meet aging skaters regularly in the art, media and web worlds. It seems a lot of people in the Rails community used to skate, too. We’re everywhere! I still collect the videos, old and new. It must be the most creative sport ever devised by man.