Though I still skate no better than the day I started, I’ve spent quite a few summers bombing hills and racking up scars. I honestly can not count how many guys I’ve met over the years totally set on starting their own board company, only to lose the dream before it really began; they’d draft up a dozen designs, get all their friends pumped — and then have absolutely no idea what to do next.
Zazzle.com has gone and made the rest of the process dead simple with the launch of their brand new custom skateboard deck shop, a product of their partnership with artist/former pro skateboarder Andy Howell’s ARTSPROJEKT. You take your design, throw it into Zazzle’s customization system, and they’ll print it up and have it out the door within 24 hours.
As a canvas, you’ve got your choice of standard decks, mini decks, and the oldschool fishboard decks. All of the boards are offered in a variety of widths, so the boat-feeted amongst us are good to go. As far as we can tell from the press release, these aren’t trashy little K-Mart boards – nothin’ but good ol’ seven-ply maple, just as it should be. At a base-price of $60 bucks, you’re getting a one-of-a-kind custom board for just about the same price you’d pay for any old off-the-shelf deck.
As long as the boards look good and ride well, I can’t come up with a single negative thing to say. I’m hoping to get my hands on one of these decks sometime in the next few days, and I’ll report back as soon as I do. In the mean time, go play with the deck designer.