NEW SKATEBOARD GRAPHICS
HARDISTY, NAMBDEY
In the 1980s skateboarding gained notoriety, growing from a Southern California hobby born out of surfing to a nationwide trend, which developed into a visual style. While the bottoms of skateboards have always been adorned with graphics, back then only a handful of skateboard manufacturers existed. Today, vast amounts of visuals are created for skateboards, with more than 40 major brands in the market. Because of how the sport has grown, however, many of these graphics are used for only a season, and then are forgotten about until now.
From spreads of full-board designs to detailed crops of patterns and graphics, New Skateboard Graphics features the freshest, most innovative work being produced today for the bottoms of decks, including examples from Chocolate, Element, Enjoi, Heroin, Hessenmob, $lave, Toy Machine and many others. More than just illustrations, however, the foreword by designer Michael Leon and interviews with designers and creators of major brands, like Michael Leon of Rasa Libre and Jamie Thomas of Zero, shed light on how these companies maintain brand loyalty through graphics. An indispensable source for skateboarders and graphic designers alike, New Skateboard Graphics answers the question: Why devote so much time and energy to a design that will inevitably be scuffed away?
