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40 Beautiful Skateboard Designs
The skateboard has been a favorite medium of artists for decades. Not only does it provide a sturdy surface to paint on, but it offers a great way to have your artwork be seen in the community. Skateboarding culture, which was once looked on as a short-term fad for rebellious teens, has established itself in society.
A wide range of artists have opted to put the canvas aside and go with the unique shape of the skateboard as a way to get their artwork out. In this article, we showcase 40 amazing skateboard designs that blend various design styles. Whether you used to skateboard, currently skateboard or have never stepped on one, these skateboard designs will surely lend inspiration.
[Offtopic: by the way, do you know the Smashing Network has its own Smashing Network RSS Feed? Only excerpts are displayed in the feed.]
Beautiful Skateboard Designs and Resources
BRC
The Black Rock Collective is a design collective of over 40 artists. By letting each person contribute a different style, they come up with a great variety of designs.
Drez
Impressive skateboard designs by the freelance designer and illustrator Drez were brought to life by exporting his vector artwork for creation as plotted vinyl graphics. His other deck designs feature a collection of fantastic illustrations with heavy textures and a variety of graphics.
Andrew Graves
Andrew Groves is an illustrator, artist, maker of small things and creator of beasts. His designs are always unique and recognizable, with original illustrated characters and motifs.
Calavera
Calavera exhibits a great comic-book style in its designs. They use great illustrations, and a lot of their designs feature a vintage look and style.
J3 Concepts
The skateboard designs below exhibit a brilliant, playful style. Each design uses great colors to achieve a fun style.
DolceQ
No one said design couldn’t have a little edge to it. These designs show that even edgy designs can be turned into beautiful artwork.
Electrik Suicide
Electrik Suicide uses great mixed-media designs to create a unique style. His designs feature images that really let the mind penetrate the depths of the board.
Mike7
Mike uses a brilliant array of colors to make his designs really pop. His blending of colors gives his artwork a unique style.
No Pattern
Artist Chuck Anderson sharply mixes together everyday photographic realism and colorful, fantasy-tinged surrealism, creating a rich and vivid portrait of a world only imagined.
Go Media
Go Media is a design group that creates mind-numbing designs. Having a large body of experience designing in different media, they’re able to easily turn the skateboard into an amazing work of art while keeping its purpose and culture at the forefront.
MWM Graphics
MWM uses a vivid mix of colors, shapes and patterns to create some truly awesome and unusual boards. With mixtures of colors rarely seen together, his skateboards have an altogether distinct feel.
Further Resources
You can find more beautiful skateboard designs in these showcases:
- 220+ Stunning Creative Skateboard Graphics
- 30 Cool Vector-Illustrated Skateboard Decks
Here are 30 very cool examples of vector skateboard deck art with info on the artists behind them, plus some resources to help you get started creating your own skateboard deck art.
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April 12th, 2009 3:45 amNice one. My favs are the ones from Chuck Anderson..
The first design from the last set (MWM Graphics) kinda reminds me of the Webdesignersdepot theme. - 3April 12th, 2009 3:45 am
Very nice designs. I really like the last one of No pattern.
Almost to pretty to screw some wheels on to and start riding :D - 4April 12th, 2009 3:46 am
Haha! Awesome! Original post. I’m in with Andrew Graves, I love those figures.
- 5April 12th, 2009 3:50 am
so inspiring…
the last one is very nice color….
keep move SM !! - 6April 12th, 2009 3:53 am
Some of them are really good for design inspiration… Thanks Parker for your effort in putting this all together.
DKumar M.
- 7April 12th, 2009 4:57 am
Awesonme selection.
I’d love to have them all on a wall…. - 8April 12th, 2009 5:21 am
cool design, some of them are fantastic indeed.
- 9April 12th, 2009 7:00 am
I have seen the last no pattern one as a wallpaper before.
- 10April 12th, 2009 7:41 am
Reminds me a lot of the book New Skateboard Graphics [link] that came out recently.
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- 12April 12th, 2009 8:09 am
Some of them are awful, some awesome. Lawl.
- 13April 12th, 2009 9:56 am
Niceeeee
- 14April 12th, 2009 10:45 am
Where is the “svidetel” design, the winner of the first tour of Burton challenge? It was awesome, the incarnation of great russian internet mem about funny wedding witness (sounds in russian like “svidetel”).
- 15April 12th, 2009 11:58 am
I really miss skool deck graphics
- 16April 12th, 2009 1:36 pm
sweet article, a snowboard or surf board article would be sick
- 17April 12th, 2009 3:31 pm
Very cool round up. We also put something similar up a few weeks ago about snowboards, check it out: http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/02/50-beautiful-snowboard-designs/
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- 19April 12th, 2009 6:06 pm
http://sirjskateboarding.blogspot.com – interesting but honestly, these decks don’t hit the skate shop because they don’t sell through very well. They are nice to look at, but alas…no one buys.
- 20April 12th, 2009 6:10 pm
I think the last three were done by Lisa Frank, just missing a mystical pony
- 21April 12th, 2009 6:59 pm
Great post, guys. I could use more of this…
- 22April 12th, 2009 7:14 pm
Hmmm, seems Smashing Magazine has really jumped the shark this time.
- 23April 12th, 2009 7:55 pm
Thank you SM for bringing a small piece of the art world to light. This medium has been used as an outlet for artists for almost 10 years and it is refreshing to finally see it hit such design circles. I used to only see this type of work in tattoo shops and conventions. I’ll always remember 13 years ago, flipping through the CSS catalog only for the art of the boards, not who sponsored it. Keep it the amazing work SM, and thanks again.
- 24April 12th, 2009 8:23 pm
Lovin’ the decks! (theloveofsport)com
- 25April 12th, 2009 9:44 pm
Like a kid in a candy store.
All the links to deckpeck.com seem broken.
- 26April 12th, 2009 11:37 pm
Nice design..
- 27April 13th, 2009 12:08 am
Beautiful !
But I prefer the skateboard of USUGROW design.
http://www.usugrow.com/gallery/deck.html - 28April 13th, 2009 12:54 am
AGONIA CMYK decks
by mr. krupsky
http://www.agoniaskateboarding.com/decks.html - 29April 13th, 2009 12:59 am
I would never made grinds, slide or so (except perhaps the dark slide) with those decks… By the way, I always thought that skateboards and snowboards and LPs covers design are the best jobs a graphic designer may have to do.
- 30April 13th, 2009 1:10 am
Skateboards? Lol.
- 31April 13th, 2009 2:58 am
Wish I was out skating instead of sitting in the office watching 925ing.com …Roll on the summer!
- 32April 13th, 2009 5:10 am
Some good, some not. how the drez design i.e got on the list kind of boggles me. Totally generic, not interesting at all. The other ones are OK, but this looks a lot like bad blog-recycling to me – there’s a vast selection of far better designs than this out there.
- 33April 13th, 2009 5:57 am
awesome designs! i just wish i know how to skate.
- 34April 13th, 2009 6:40 am
es muy buenoooo
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- 36April 13th, 2009 7:51 am
Cool designs, I like the retro designs myself
- 37April 13th, 2009 8:25 am
I like the decks Dalek designed before : http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c345/buschrj/DalekDecks.jpg – of course these will be too nice to actually bust on it though haha
- 38April 13th, 2009 8:56 am
gr8 inspiration!!!! even though i dnt skate :P:P but the designs are simply gr8!
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- 40April 13th, 2009 9:47 am
Awesome stuff! Really nice to see some un-web articles. You can go directly to http://www.deckpeck.com to view all the boards.
- 41April 13th, 2009 10:01 am
Hey Smashing, thanks for featuring the GO Media decks!
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- 43April 13th, 2009 1:42 pm
Great Illustrations.. Great Job!
- 44April 13th, 2009 2:35 pm
i can see where this would be somewhat inspirational.. but, for a monday.. it didn’t really do it’s motivating job…
- 45April 13th, 2009 6:36 pm
oh~ cool~~but some I dislike~:)
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- 47April 13th, 2009 7:14 pm
Living in Southern California, I see that skateboard design has changed quite a bit over the years. As a young teen, I skated quite a bit. Regardless of what generation of skaters you may consider, some of these designs are hideous.
- 48April 13th, 2009 9:13 pm
You can’t have a list like this without some of Michael Sieben’s work included.
- 49April 13th, 2009 10:11 pm
my god. 90% of those are complete crap. who ever compiled this list obviously has no grasp on the history of skateboard graphics. i’m guessing that most of the boards shown were not part of an actual skateboard company’s line, except the Foundation boards. please try again and do some research.
- 50April 14th, 2009 3:12 am
isaac:
Afraid of change? Your attitude tells me you are working for either GM or Chrysler. Oh wait, I meant WERE working.I have looked at a whole lot of board designs the past years and I can’t really see what’s so wrong about those in the list, unless nude women, dices, bling and other half-heartedly clichéd designs drawn from the 80s are what floats your boat.
- 51April 14th, 2009 3:39 am
The last ones were like…usj, didn’t like them. But alot of those on the top to the middle were pretty good. But the graphics will not help without a pretty good board for a skater.
- 52April 14th, 2009 7:29 am
oh my goodness. I want to start skateboarding now!!!
- 53April 14th, 2009 8:18 am
Beautiful artwork. Thanks for sharing!
- 54April 14th, 2009 12:41 pm
i agree with isaac. most of these boards look like they come out of video games or toy ‘r us skateboards. the foundation ones are great. but what about actual graphics like the vision ones back then or nowadays with what real & krooked are doing. or the black label boards done by jason adams. great graphics by actual companies & awesome artists. that’s what this list is missing.
- 55April 14th, 2009 7:35 pm
Muito foda todos eles, sk8 na veia para sempre!!!!
- 56April 14th, 2009 11:20 pm
isaac:
Afraid of change? Your attitude tells me you are working for either GM or Chrysler. Oh wait, I meant WERE working.I have looked at a whole lot of board designs the past years and I can’t really see what’s so wrong about those in the list, unless nude women, dices, bling and other half-heartedly clichéd designs drawn from the 80s are what floats your boat.
Change is great, but most of those would have little to no appeal for most skaters. similar graphics have been used on different products for “kids” toys for a long time. all i’m saying is that if you are going to change something, do it with the quality of the work. not just applying bright colors with perceived hip content on the shape of a skateboard deck.
aside from the Andrew Graves Foundation decks and have any of the graphics been produced on boards, or are these in production? couldn’t tell that from the article.
- 57April 14th, 2009 11:27 pm
So kids aren’t allowed to skate anymore?
- 58April 15th, 2009 12:55 am
U forgot emil kozak , and me , emil rydberg.
check my skateboard deck haha
- 59April 15th, 2009 12:56 am
A lot of these graphics do NOT, I repeat do NOT, represent skateboarding and skateboard graphics as of 2009 and if you think otherwise, you are wrong. Period.
- 60April 15th, 2009 1:03 am
The “Bold is Beautiful” by Go Media seems to have been incarnated onto a tee — you can find it at http://www.designbyhumans.com. I thought it looked super familiar!
- 61April 15th, 2009 4:48 am
MAO:
Then what DOES represent 2009 in skateboarding?Remember that we don’t have enough toilet paper for you so please be considerate when taking your next shit.
- 62April 15th, 2009 5:10 am
‘Feeling the DolceQ designs the most…baadazz ;)
Thanks for sharing - 63April 15th, 2009 5:27 am
Quakeulf:
Nice approach. I love you too.If you don’t know what represents skateboarding, then you’re probably not a skateboarder and should stay out of discussions like this. Unless you want to look like a kook.
- 64April 15th, 2009 6:56 am
MAO:
Hey, it worked, after putting an immense amount of goodwill into it and driving my forehead through my desk I must admit defeat. Those boards look 101,1 jillion % different than those posted. Great find!!! Your mother must be real proud of you. - 65April 15th, 2009 7:25 am
Quakeulf:
Excellent sarcasm. A+ - 66April 15th, 2009 10:08 am
Hating this, most of them are vector packs masked in a deck shape, they are not designs thought to be in a skateboard, they´re just cool graphics that could be applied anywhere (paper, posters, web, wallpapers), none of the designs dares to take the deck as an unique piece and work conceptually with that in mind.
I´m getting pretty bored to see the same applied everyewhere. - 67April 15th, 2009 11:19 am
Great!
Maybe you like the Borja Bonaque designs.http://borjabonaque.com/portfolio/gallery-2/
;)
Miquel. - 68April 15th, 2009 12:01 pm
Radical Dude! I like alot of them and makes me wanna go get a skate and ride. Skate or Die, Dude!!! Haters, go complain in a closet where you can listen to your gripes all by yourself, ha!!!
- 69April 15th, 2009 1:27 pm
Awesome Designs…
- 70April 17th, 2009 3:55 am
God dag! Kan jag ladda ner en bild fran din blogg. Av sak med hanvisning till din webbplats!
- 71April 17th, 2009 7:47 am
i love you, theyre all sick
- 72April 17th, 2009 9:26 am
What about these? I love them!
http://www.highsnobiety.com/news/2009/01/08/doodah-supermodel-skateboards/Although, great collection overall!
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- 75April 21st, 2009 12:31 am
As far as popular culture is concerned, skateboarding is a recent phenomenon but one that has taken society by storm. Since its invention, skateboarding has spread throughout the world, and there are skaters in most countries of the world, on every continent (except perhaps Antarctica). You can find more stuff on the history and evolution of skateboarding, skater gear, skateboarding tricks, and the skateboarding community, as well as skateboard shops at http://skateboards.eu/
- 76April 21st, 2009 12:32 pm
Great post! Cool sk8board design…
- 77April 23rd, 2009 1:45 am
Nice graphic design, I could hang some on my wall, but all these (as most board designs) are super extravagant and noisy. Where are the pure, delicate designs that emphasize the human being using the board? Skateboarding and snowboarding should be about the beauty of body, movement and skill, not about how flashy a board you got.
- 78April 23rd, 2009 2:32 pm
those are nice but you forgot about one artist. Mark Gonzales.
- 79April 24th, 2009 3:04 am
I’m the only one in this world. Can please someone join me in this life? Or maybe death…
- 80April 25th, 2009 8:37 am
nice boards check out my boards
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- 82May 3rd, 2009 1:15 pm
I really thought that was an interesting topic it certainly needs a little more thought , i will get back later with my thoughts.
- 83May 6th, 2009 7:17 am
Great collection! I love the Calavera decks! Deckpeck is pretty awesome. I love how they let everyone create skate decks.
+
I tried my hand at skateboards lately as well.
Check em out!
- 84May 11th, 2009 3:54 am
there are some nice stuff… but not the best collection … i have seen much better stuff… only if you understand skateboarding culture will u be able to design it…
- 85June 17th, 2009 3:48 am
I think it is cool i’m not a big skater but i’ll sometimes just go out and skate alittle. I liked the ones that were like techno…ish. All of them were cool though
- 86June 18th, 2009 11:58 am
Just found this sweet Barack Obama Deck. Great graphics on all the decks on this site. http://invasionskates.com/store/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=26
- 87July 10th, 2009 12:42 am
my favourites are Go Media & No Pattern…
especially the 2nd one in no pattern & 3rd one in Go media.
goodwork. :) - 88July 14th, 2009 4:54 am
The best information i have found exactly here. Keep going Thank you
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- 90November 3rd, 2009 9:28 pm
these are really good but, they could use EXCILENT!!!! LOL
I THINK U HAVE DONE A REAL GOOD JOB AND IM SURE YOUR DESIGNS WILL IMPROVE!!
kind regards marni papalii .p.s. im 11 and can u make me one?? - 91November 4th, 2009 11:57 am
this skate site sucks!
- 92November 5th, 2009 10:05 am
Thankfully, this list doesn’t represent the actual skateboarding art world (boards skated on or collected for wall display). Skate graphics have always been more folk art, for lack of a better term, than what is displayed here. By folk, I refer to original art made by skaters for skaters, not pretty imagery pulled from a design tutorial book or from a slick 3d vector opener to a crappy reality tv show – which is what several of the designs here resemble. Some posted here are interesting to look at, sure, but most are soul-less and have nothing to do with actual skateboard culture. The Foundation ones are actual production boards, not my taste, but representative of one faction of the skateboard industry. While skateboarding has “established itself in society”, it is still illegal in most places and it’s aesthetic will remain true to the roots it’s been built upon, skater-created art.
For an overview of some of the successful skateboard designs from this misunderstood culture’s history, see here: http://www.skateanddestroy.net/
- 93February 6th, 2010 11:52 am
sexy
- 00
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cool designs! My fav: Andrew Graves illustrations.