Darkstar Skateboards is a skate brand founded in 1997 in El Segundo, California by two brothers: Chet and Matt Thomas. It was named after the song of the same name by the rock band Grateful Dead. Firstly, Darkstar was a skateshop that soon became the Darkstar Wheels brand. As soon as they started creating boards, they renamed themselves Darkstar Skateboards.
Who owns the brand?
Long independent, Dwindle bought the brand after a few years. It then joined the group with Enjoi, Blind skateboards, Almost skateboards, Tensor Trucks, and Dusters. Then, the latter is under the ownership of Globe International since 2002. Since 2019, Highline Industries Corporations/Bravo Sport (Sector 9, Pro-tec, Nutcase helmets, and Six Six One) has owned Dwindle Distribution.
The brand has assembled a team of quality pro-riders, consisting of 12 skaters. To name them: Ryan Decenzo, PLG, Greg Lutzka, Dave Bachinsky, Cameo Wilson, Manolo Robles, Ke’Chaud Johnson, Adam Dyet, Reemo Pearson, Santana Saldana, Jeo Hinson and Mike Berdis.
Skateboard graphics
Known for its iconic black knight’s helmet logo, it stands out for its dark and highly detailed illustrations. For the past ten years, it has called upon the Portland creative agency, Oregon Lincoln Design, to create its graphics. The agency has already created more than 100 designs for the brand.
Always in line with their DNA, she also created with labels outside the skate industry. For instance, collabs with the manufacturer Harley Davidson, Biltwell or the cartoon Felix the Cat.
Like many other brands, Darkstar Skateboards regularly collaborates with artists for one-offs or on a regular basis. The artist Luke Pelletier, Patrick Nagel have already designed several beautiful series, the Canadian artist Meka, James Kerr aka Scorpion Dagger, Erik Foss and many others are also at the origin of beautiful graphics that you can discover below.
For the second time, the talented creative duo Morning Breath signs a series of boards with Darkstar Skateboards (see here the first one). With New Abnormal, Doug Cunningham and Jason Noto take on a topical subject: the main problems of…
Once again, Californian artist Luke Pelletier collaborates on a new series of 3 boards with Darkstar Skateboards. This strong pale pink Guest Artist Pro Series is a kind of happy patchwork of illustrations based on cherries, guns, bikinis and skeletons.…
Darkstar Skateboards breathes new life into its Celtic Pro series by giving it completely new colors with the ‘Celtic Neon Pro’. The skeleton warriors created by the Lincoln design studio were designed for 6 of the team’s riders: Dave Bachinsky,…
The Thomas brothers’ brand, Darkstar Skateboards has just released a new series called ‘Celtic Pro’. Once again, the Lincoln design studio was responsible for creating these impressive illustrations. Cheerful skeletons armed to the teeth are represented and surrounded by Celtic…
Darkstar Skateboards has released a new Guest Artist series with Erik Foss. This New York artist is also known to co-manage one of NYC’s hottest bars, the Lit Lounge. His universe is both very colorful and very dark matches perfectly…
Morning Breath Inc is a New York design studio created in 2002 by Doug Cunningham and Jason Noto. They were invited by Darkstar Skateboards to create a series of boards. They had carte blanche to illustrate these 4 boards, in…
Darkstar has signed a limited series of 3 boards with artist Joe King. In addition to the quality of the pencil stroke of the artist and creator of the brand NoHOURS, the boards denote by the play of color of…
Darkstar Skateboards, the brand created by Matt and Chet Thomas has released a new series of boards called ‘Blacklight’. As its name suggests, the idea is that boards react to black light. The brand worked with the Lincoln design studio,…
The success of the first Patrick Nagel x Darkstar Skateboards capsule collection led the brand to renew the operation with a 2 series of 3 boards for Ryan Decenzo, Greg Lutzka and Ke’Chaud. Women remain at the heart of this…
For its new capsule collection, Darkstar Skateboards offered one of the greatest American illustrators of the 20th century: Patrick Nagel. His obsession with the representation of women will lead the artist to see his work published in Playboy. This tribute series…
