50 Skateboard Logos Explained

50 Skateboard Logos Explained - The Story Behind The Brands
In this video we explored how different skateboard brands got their logos. Find out what skateboarding logo was thought up in a dream? What company had to change their logo 3 times? Who's logo was inspired by a famous book? Which brand had to change their name 6 months in? And much much more!

Spitfire - Designed by Kevin Ancell, a surfer and skater from Venice, who was homeless at a very young age, he later goes on to design loads of famous artwork, most notably the Spitfire logo. He later went on to become a very successful fine artist.
Kevin was an interesting, often they originally used a firefly logo.

Real - Kevin also designed the Real Skateboards logo. In the 90’s oval logo’s seemed to be super hot, and real is one of those logos…

Krooked- The shmoo and Krooked eyes logos are both the brain childs of Mark Gonzalez. Most krooked artwork gets stolen off of post cards a different art that he sends over to the DLX offices.

Independent-
Done by Jim Phillips (grosso, hosoi, slaba, natas). He created it inspired by the iron cross, a cross used by many surfers and bikers in 1960s
-rounds off the edges and tweaking it
-his bosses said it looked too nazi
-so he starts again from scratch
-he finds a TIME magazine with the pope on the cover and takes it in to his bosses who say, if the it’s ok with the Pope, its ok with us.

Santa Cruz-
Red dot- the first logo sc let out jay sharman jim philips
Screaming Hand- jim philips designed it
-one of the earliest examples of artwork on a board

Dogtown-
-the logo is based off dogtown cross graffiti was was all over the wall in Santa Monica/ Venice area. They believe it was originally some kind of Hispanic gang logo. 

-the logo was a originally a piece of graffiti called the ‘dogtown cross’ drawn by Craig Stecyk III IN 1976

-It was used in a Dogtown ad in Skateboarder Magazine

-Jay Adams’ step father Kent Sherwood advised Muir to trademark the name Dogtown it saved their asses when middle aged businessman started trying to steal the name Dogtown

Nike SB - the classic Nike logo with a SB hint that stands for skateboarding. Some people like to note it could stand for Sandy Bodecker who launched Nike SB.

Vans- The Vans skateboard logo was designed by the son of the president of Vans at the time, Mark Van Doren  in the 1970’s, he was only 13 years old at the time, and designed the logo as a stencil to spray paint on his skateboards.

RDS - Comes from a traditional cantonese alphabet character meaning “middle or balance” colin mckay came up with the logo based off of the book Red Dragon, a character carves it into a tree

Thrasher- Typace called banco, french graphic designer roger Roger Excoffon

és -Original es logo is hand drawn by Ako Jefersn on a napkin. (twin brother of atiba)

Skull Skates- Originally called Great North Country Skateboards, owner PD carved a skull into his griptape.  They started making it as a GNC logo, and it become so popular people started calling the brand Skull skates .

Airwalk -Named airwalk after tony hawks signature skte trick. Cinthia Sebula designed their logo to look like a psteradactyl, they later also make “ollie the running man” logo, which is also designed by Cinthia.

Alien Workshop-Designed by owner Mike Hill in his basement
-inspo pulled form Dennys logo and Mehrathon Gas station logos
-I drew the logo and then traced the shadow on his desk (this is why it is distorted)
-if you flip it on it’s side it’s rumoured to say NEIL B for Neil Blender, the original pro rider for Alien.

Anti Hero- The pigeon logo was thought up by Julien Stranger, and drawn up by Todd Francis. They said they wanted the pigeon to look like he had had a barrel of oil poured on his head, and all scuffed up. They admired pigeon for their resilience. 
Years later Todd Francis also drew the Eagle logo that is used today.

Chocolate Skateboards- Originally supposed to be called Sister skateboards, but their competitor Steve Rocco caught wind of this and stole the patent. The Chocolate font was originally done by Andy Jenkins, then the chunk typography we know today was done by Evan Hecox.

Osiris Shoes- Osiris is the Egyptian god of agriculture, death and resurrection. Osiris is often depicted in Egyptian hieroglyphics as an eye ball. The Osiris logo is most likely a take on an eye ball.

Dime MTL- The Dime logo is based off of the classic Dior logo.

Call Me 917- The brand 917-692-2706 is created by Alex Olson and gets nicknamed Call Me 917 for simplicity. Olson chose this name because he liked the idea of being a kid and being a detective to things, seeing a phone number and wanting to call it and find out what it's about. The logo is actually a phone number that you can call and it has different answreing machine messages over the years.

World Industries- The new World Industries logo was drawn by famous artist Sean Cliver. Who also designed devil man, flame boy and wet willy, This gave the brand a second life, tripling the brands sales in one year, before selling for $20M to a venture capital company the following year.

Blind Skateboards- Gonz and Rocco both have fallings out with Brad Dorfman of Vision skateboards. So when they decide to start a new board company, they go with the polar opposite of Vision and call it Blind skateboards. The Blind script logo is drawn by Mark Gonzales, which is why it looks strikingly similar to the Krooked artwork we see today.
The Blind reaper logo is done by famed skateboard artist Mark Mckee in 1996.

Palace Skateboards- Furgus Purcell meets Lev Tanju and the palace skate crew at Slam City Skate in London, England. They are both London based skaters. Lev approaches Furgus to design a logo for him, he uses the penrose triangle to design the famous logo, that is now coined 'the tri-Ferg'. 


Supreme New York- The Supreme logo is inspired by Barbara Kruger's pop art, which she used to poke fun at consumer culture. The Supreme box logo is red rectangular box with Supreme written in it in futura bold italic.

Toy Machine- Ed Templeton used a monster light switch cover that he buys at a garage sale and makes a crayon rubbing of it. He put this crayon sketch onto t-shirts and the logo becomes super popular. Later the artist starts seeing these shirts around and he gets a cease and desist. Around 1995, Ed approaches famed skateboard artist Sean Cliver to redesign the monster into the logo we know today.

Girl Skateboards- Rick and Mike make the Girl logo based on the girl's washroom sign.

Polar Skateboards- The Polar circle logo is designed by Stefan Narancic, who did many of the early graphics and artwork for the brand.

Baker Skateboards- The original Baker logo is drawn by Jay Strickland, he printed it out with in impact font font and made subtle changed the letters, also drew a little elephant that went with it originally.

Birdhouse Skateboards- Originally called Birdhouse projects. The B logo is drawn by famous skate artist Sean Cliver, and is a slight play on the Powell Peralta P.

Element Skateboards- The Element tree logo is designed and drawn by Element founder Johnny Schiliref - because nature

DC Shoes- The original DC shoes logo is designed by Ken Block and is oval shaped, DC gets cease and desist from Champion, because the logo looks too similar. DC changes the logo to the intertwined DC letters with a 5 point star, then they get a C&D from Converse who has the patent on a 5 point star on footwear. After this, they change it to a 7 point star, the logo we know today.

Alltimers- The Alltimers logo is based off of deceased retail store Sears logo.

Enjoi Skateboards- The Enjoi logos is conceptualized when the co-founder Marc Johnson thought up the name Enjoi and panda logo in a dream he had. 

Quasi Skateboards- Chad Bowers, The old Alien Workshop team manager, Chad Bowers leaves Alien Workshop as the brand is falling apart. He starts a brand called Mother Collective with a few friends and is joined by a few ex Alien riders; Jake Johnson, Tyler Bledsoe and Gilbert Crockett
After a very brief stint as Mother, they get a create and desist from another brand who owns the rights to Mother Collective, they are forced to change the name. They choose Quasi as Bowers says he enjoys the letter Q, and he draws out the font commonly used at their logo. 

Shake Junt- The Shake Junt logo is created to look like a neon sign you would see o a liquor store or strip club in Vegas. The logo is green and gold to symbolize the two driving forces of Shake Junt: money and honeys. The concept was created by founder Shane Heyl. 

Volcom- The Volcom Stone logo was designed by Thom McElroy, an ex sponsored surfer turned designer.
Thom worked for Vision skateboards for a while. Designing boards for Gonz back in the day. McElroy was flipping through a geology textbook when he sees a line drawing of a diamond cut in half, with the wording "the diamond, the most precious stone". He sketches the diamond out in black and white and flips it upside down to make it look sharp, that is how the Volcom stone logo is born.

Black Label- Originally Lucero Limited, but changed to Black LAbel in 1990. Lucero drew their timeless Flame Logo.

Powell Peralta- The Ripper logo is designed by Vernon Courtlandt Johnson, who drew most of the early iconic graphics for the brand. VCJ goes on to become the most celebrated skateboard graphic artist of all time.