Saturday 10 March 2012

Off The Shelf

Skateboard Stickers
Authors: Mark Munson and Steve Cardwell
Publishers: Laurence King


In the beginning there was a skateboard, only a skateboard - no graphics, just a plank of wood with a bit of varnish slapped onto the surface, if you were lucky.  Then in circa 1977 the Dog Town Crew hit the scene and skateboard graphic art took off in a big way, they led the skate industry into a different dimension and skateboard graphic design as we know it, was Born.

Like a trailing un-cut umbilical cord, skate design has been left to its own devices, sometimes dragging through the metaphorical gutter of messy graphics and other times being unintentionally dragged through someone's hands that came upon some mystical illustration that caught on like a proverbial rash.
Oops, we have gone all 'creative writing' again on the above... Dang!

Now that the umbilical cord has been severed we can look back in admiration to the skaters/artists that made it big, guys like Andy Howell, Neil Blender, Mark Gonzales and Ed Templeton to throw out just a few. Sticker designs hit the street soon after, as a form of company logo promotion and most of the board graphics produced had stickers to echo their design.

Nearly every skater has a sticker collection of some sort, slapped onto a fridge, wardrobe or an old favourite board that they just can't get rid of. There is tons to check out in this book, some golden oldies and some you may not have seen before, that's why it's so cool to get your hands on this title.
So without further delay let's get inside...

(Oh yeh,  a big thanks goes out to Boneless Bill for letting us use his board (full of character) as a book support... Someone please throw this dude a decent deck).










Klick the K for a Kloser Look

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