Pleased to Skate: A community to remind you why you started skateboarding

I’ve never been the “best” skater—I’m not the guy hucking down stairs or hitting handrails. In addition to saving money on hospital bills, accepting that about myself has freed me up to focus on simply having the most fun I can.

In my final year of design school, I set out to foster that joyful spirit for others by creating my own just-for-fun skate company: Pleased to Skate.

In a few short years, Pleased grew from a brand identity and a run of 5 skateboards into a community of creativity—openminded people exploring skateboarding as a metaphor for life; all its joy and pain, steady progress and frequent frustration.

A huge part of why I loved this project was it forced me to learn to work in new media. I jumped into filming with two old Sony camcorders, which feel as much like toys as they do video cameras. “Hootie” is a 24m skate video I directed, shot, and edited for Pleased. Combining animated illustration, video, and music, it captures the wide range of emotions felt when skateboarding. Most of the music used is from bands local to North Texas, which was my subtle nod to Texas and the skate scene that supported the project so wholeheartedly.

Naming

I called it Pleased to Skate. From a brand-naming standpoint, it didn’t make much sense—most brands don’t choose names ending in -ed. Plus, it was hard to pronounce and people never heard it correctly when I told them the name. Somehow, though, the absurdity felt right. Among the skate community, “Pleased” became a marker of a good time.

Room for interpretation

As I developed the artwork of Pleased, I dove into my fascination with double meanings and the use of parable. I’ve always been comfortable thinking big and not having all the answers, and I had fun blending representational and ambiguous imagery to create mystery.

Product Design

In addition to 3 unique runs of skateboards, I developed a line of hats, t-shirts, and sweatshirts. Pieces featured variations on the motif "Just Happy to Be Here" and were created using screen printing, linoleum block-printing, and embroidery. From my humble bedroom operation I shipped skateboards and apparel out to skaters all over North America.

The most beautiful outcome of the project was the group of people who believed in Pleased. From the skaters that made up our humble “team,” to my grandfather who loaned me money for our first order of 50 boards, people seemed to resonate with the whole thing. Sometimes fun is the only reason you need to do something.

Thank you to everyone who was a part of Pleased.