Skateboarder = Designer

Skateboarder = Designer

I was thinking back to my good old days of being a very active skateboarder, travelling miles and miles up and down the UK just to skate one spot! You end up spending time in the car or on the train working what tricks you’re going to try (or want to try) based on the what the spot looked like from photos or videos you have seen, the ones that made you decide that this is a spot I have to go to.

So it dawned on me, by being a skater you are automatically a designer in so many ways, and you are actually designing much, much more than you think…

Skateboard design process:

When you reach a spot you start to design different approaches to obstacles, left, right, forwards, backwards, regular stance, or goofy… and if you are going to put in some tricks before you hit your main thing, deciding how long a possible run could be, what tricks you can fit in, where, what way round you will be facing afterwards and if you can fit in anything extra between obstacles.

You determine your speed and what’s possible at that speed, and what direction you will come out of the trick.

Without realising you have designed something, and it’s actually something very complicated and ticks off problem solving too.

It really takes a certain type of brain to do this, and one that has a great base in the creative world. Designing an efficient solution that scales to fit the scenario and looks as good as possible (or at least to your best ability). As with graphic design or designing your photo shoot, with skateboarding you get better with experience, knowledge and technical ability which all comes with practice, lots of practice.

There will always be room to improve your design or tricks and always something you could of done better, faster or was more technical!!

Designers = Skateboarders

Skateboarders = Designers