Santa Cruz Skateboards Logo PNG
The manufacturer’s emblem reflects energy and drive. The Santa Cruz logo, featuring a powerful, flight-ready skater, suggests its equipment will help skateboarders experience the sport’s true pleasure.
Santa Cruz began in 1969, when surfers Richard Novak, Doug Haut, and Jay Shuirman formed NHS in Santa Cruz, California. The company first sold fiberglass and related materials to surfboard workshops, boat builders, and racing teams, but margins were thin. Its turn came in 1973, when Jimmy Hoffman from a Hawaiian company asked NHS to make 500 skateboards. The founders had never made boards before, but used surplus fiberglass, and the first Santa Cruz batch sold quickly.
Early boards looked like small surfboards, with no kicktail, narrow trucks, and large soft wheels on loose ball bearings. In 1974, Anthony Roderick introduced the NHS to Road Rider wheels with sealed precision bearings. Compared with clay wheels and Frank Nasworthy’s Cadillac Wheels from 1972, Road Rider solved the problem of loose bearings jamming. By late 1975, more than one million sets had sold worldwide.
In 1975, the NHS hired artist Jim Phillips, who created the Road Rider Wheels logo, the red dot, and early slanted Santa Cruz lettering. In 1978, NHS and Ermico Enterprises founded Independent Truck Company, adding trucks to a business that already had decks and wheels. Jay Shuirman died of leukemia in 1979, while Doug Haut later sold his share and built his own surfboard company.
Phillips created the Rob Roskopp series in 1984 and the Screaming Hand in 1985. In the late 1980s and 1990s, Santa Cruz and Powell-Peralta shaped street skateboarding through riders such as Natas Kaupas, Rob Roskopp, Steve Olson, and Jason Jessee, as well as “Wheels of Fire” and “Streets on Fire.”
Meaning and History
First, the parent company, NHS, was founded and named after three friends. To obtain a concise, understandable form, they used the first letters of their names: Novak, Haut, and Shuirman. Initially, the company specialized in supplying surfboard materials. Skateboarding entered their lives later, when a fateful call from the head of McCully’s Bike Shop in Hawaii rang in the office. He asked them to customize 500 skateboards. Friends accepted the application, and in 1973, they introduced the Santa Cruz skateboards. At the same time, they produced the famous Road Rider Wheels and Independent Trucks, wheels, and bases.
The debut models resembled a mini-cruiser. The decks were small and looked much like modern Penny skateboards. Back then, boards were the main task of skateboarding – fast downhill and speed racing. Therefore, their design was slightly different: a narrow base, large soft wheels, and noisy bearings. But with the advent of the trick era, they’ve been refined; Santa Cruz is now believed to make the best skate components, and they sell their wheels separately.
What is the Santa Cruz logo?
Santa Cruz is an American manufacturer of legendary high-end skateboards and bicycles. It appeared in 1973 through a business partnership of three friends: Rob Roskopp, Rich Novak, and Mike Marquez. In 1993, the company started producing bicycles. The current logo is a red circle with the brand name across it; below, in small letters, it reads “SKATEBOARDS.” The central inscription is placed diagonally, and the lower one is in a semicircle. In Santa, both A’s are ramp-shaped.
As the production base grew and skateboard performance improved, ramps began to appear in large numbers in Americans’ backyards and at skateparks across the United States. Precision bearings, urethane wheels, and boards with the iconic logo emerged in parallel. The brand owners have also focused on highly artistic graphics for their decks.
But in the 1980s, the parent company and all its brands suddenly fell into crisis over Jay Shuirman’s passing. Thrasher Skateboard Magazine helped save the day. He became the “Bible” of skateboarders, drawing attention to the sport and getting the industry back on its feet. The brand was reborn in 1984-1985 with help from Eric Swenson and Fausto Vitello, founders of Novak and Independent Trucks.
In the mid-1970s, the NHS hired freelance designer Jim Phillips, who played a crucial role in the brand’s success. He designed the legendary Road Rider Wheels emblems, the early “oblique” Santa Cruz logo, the Santa Cruz “Red Dot” insignia, and the “cross” symbol for Independent Trucks.
He also presented a series of decks with the Rob Roskopp logo, which became the most popular in 1989. Before that, in 1985, Jim had a revolutionary design that became a skateboarding icon. This is the legendary Screaming Hand symbol. It appeared on almost all brand boards and even drew attention from world art exhibitions. The Santa Cruz brand also owns other iconic skateboard icons. These include the logos of Neptune & Sungod (Jason Jesse), Toybox (Jeff Grosso), and Atomic Man (Jeff Kendall). All of them gained incredible popularity and became classics of skateboarding design.
The oblique stamp with the word “Santa Cruz” is the company’s iconic label. It is associated with the city in which skateboards were first produced. The mark is a red disc with a black edge line. In the center, the brand name appears in yellow, set diagonally, with a few italicized letters. The font is in uppercase. Each character has a shadow, making the text look voluminous. The “S” (elongated and ribbon-like) and both “A”s (pyramid-shaped) have an unusual design. At the bottom of the red circle is the word “Skateboards.”
Another iconic emblem is the Screaming Hand. It is skateboarding’s most recognizable logo and is often treated as art. Its base is a turned left hand, depicted with the palm facing forward. It is blue and resembles a stump, as evidenced by its veins and blood. A mouth is drawn on the palm. It opens wide in a cry of terror. Strong white teeth and a red tongue are visible against the backdrop of gaping darkness. Shadows complement all elements, making the hand appear volumetric. “Santa Cruz” is written under the lower lip in small letters.
Font and Colors
Although the inscription uses our custom typeface, it strongly resembles the Santa Carla font. Kirk Shelton created it and focused on a techno style. The S looks like both a railing and a skateboarding ramp.
The brand palette is bright, juicy, and rich, which fits the sport because skateboarders are often at the peak of their emotions. The logo’s color scheme uses black, blue, red, white, and yellow as the primary colors.