These are, by far, my absolute favoritist (that’s a word) deck designs out right now and if I really had the scratch, all of them would be hanging on some sort of wall of mine. Alas, soon. Now, what I really want is to know is how to get one of those stained wood decks on the far right… hmmmm.
In April 2004, UK manufacturer Clown Skateboards put out 100 boards hand-drawn by Adam Neate, an artist best known for leaving his works on street corners, either for people to take or street cleaners to bin.
While you might expect limited edition decks to go for anything up to 10 times their usual worth, Clown sold them for the price of their standard pro boards. Are they clowning around, or what? Not a bit of it, says head of Clown Jeff Boardman, though he admits says his company has its tongue firmly in cheek. Continue reading
Supreme started off (and still is) a clothing brand and was founded in New York City in 1994 by James Jebbia. In 2004, the company opened a store in Los Angeles, which is almost double the size of their original New York premises. There are other official stores in Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, and Fukuoka in Japan and one opened in London in 2011.
The chain caters to the skateboarding, hip hop, and punk rock cultures. They have collaborated with photographers Larry Clark and Terry Richardson and artists Kaws, Damien Hirst, Takashi Murakami, Jackson Pollock and Jeff Koons to drop a few names. Continue reading
Danish/Icelandic artist, Olafur Eliasson had an interesting history. Prior to his artistic ventures and constantly contemplating some very post-modern questions of perception and relation, Eliasson was the Scandinavia:n break-dancing champion. His experiences in breakdancing however, was an important influence in his art conceptions as break-dancing constantly called for one dancer to negotiate and react to another in battles, mirroring his approach to art. Continue reading
Ok, so zazzle. We all know about it and honestly, I’ve never been a fan. Quality was always subpar, and I’ve never really had a need to heatpress my logo on a coffee mug in my days as a designer. That’s sort of changed with Arts Projekt.
First off, this isn’t a paid advertisement. I legitimately am stoked at what they are offering by a surprisingly large amount of well-known and (more importantly) up-and-coming artists. Some of the heavy hitters include Dalek, Obey (even Audrey Kawasaki had some items but are now gone *sad panda*) and the like but also some lesser-known but brilliant designers like Rudy Faber, Junichi Tsuneoka and my gal Julie West. I’m assuming I’m late to the game with this site but if ya don’t know, now ya know.
They may not be limited or numbered or highly sought-after but damn if there aren’t some gorgeous decks to be hung on a wall someplace.
Check it: Arts Projekt
The decks were released in December 2010, with images from the Marc Jacobs Advertisement archives: featuring Lisa Marie (Spring 2000), Kate Moss (Fall 2000), Stephanie Seymour (Fall 2001) and M.I.A. (Spring 2009) – all photographed by Juergen Teller. The decks were available at Marc Jacobs Bookmarc and Marc Jacobs Men’s in New York.
“While the connection between Marc Jacobs and skateboarding may be lost among some, the brand has made efforts to promote and expand skateboarding. Earlier this year, they worked with the Savannah Skate Park to help raise funds over a series of t-shirts.”
HUF has partnered with Japanese artist Haroshi and Bay Area-based skateboard distributor DLX Distribution on a collaboration that incorporates the clean design aesthetic of HUF, the raw street-skating principles of DLX and a combination of both elements represented through the artwork of Haroshi.
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In 2004, Natas Kaupas started a new own board company, Designarium under the manufacturing and distribution of NHS. Natas’ art background led him to focus Designarium on artists rather than pro skaters. He has commissioned artists to interpret his original Santa Monica Airlines Panther graphic into their own vision. Each board is produced in limited edition runs.
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