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Skateboarding, art and the web, Parker Newman from Popdeck.com talks about his recently launched skateboard design community.

What is Popdeck all about?

Popdeck is essentially a skateboard design competition. Started out as a passion between our love for design/art and skateboarding. We have always collected cool decks as art after we skated them up, and this was just the natural progression.

So who is popdeck or involved with creating the idea?

My twin brother and myself start Popdeck. We were previously in the t-shirt business and have always had a passion for skateboarding. We're located in Chicago.

How does it work?

We have an ongoing contest for skateboard art and every 3 weeks we pick a winner, pay them a prize and print there board. The community has the obligation of choosing the winners by rating each design submitted out of 5. After a winner is chosen, we award them 200 dollars and a free deck.

Don't Break my beat Board design by: nunosk8

Where are the boards made?

Our boards are made in Pennsylvania by the good people of Penn Woods.

Where did you get the idea for the website?

We were pretty involved in the design community from our prior work, and just were so impressed by the different mediums people could use to create art. Being skateboarders since forever, it just seemed like a cool idea.

Do you think more people buying popdeck’s are skating their decks or do you think they are using them as art or to hang on their walls?

Right now we want to say that 90 percent of boards sold are by skateboarders. I think though over the past few years, we have really seen a push to people presenting skateboards as art and we hope to open up into that more. To be honest, you really can’t get a great piece of art for cheaper then 40 bucks. But, at the end of the day, it is a skateboard and most people are grinding them up.

What do you think is the relationship between Skateboarding and Art?

Skateboarding has always been a way for people to express themselves. Whether it is by mastering tricks or the entire graffiti and streetwear scene that goes with it. I think it is a dual serving relationship and we have seen a lot of artist come out that were skaters, these guys then become great artist and then give back to the skate community. A prime example of this to me is having these great grafitti artist that came out in the 90’s are now established gallery artists.

One prime example is Eric Elms, he was very into that whole scene in the 90’s. Started off as just a graf writer and now we have seen his amazing art on skate brands such as Supreme.

Why have you decided to produce and sell decks in only 20 units?

We started this as an idea to merge art and skating, but didn’t want this to be something that was completely exposed to the masses. We are a tight niche community and we really want people to know they are getting something unique and hand made. As we grow though we hope to raise quantities, but they will always be hand numbered

Squad Comic board design by: squad comic

$40 for a sweet original designed limited edition deck is a pretty sweet deal, How come you decided to make them so cheap?

It was basically for a few reasons, most importantly we didn’t want price to be a reason people couldn’t experience our brand or for people to be hesitant about ordering from us. Being a direct to consumer company as well, we wanted to take advantage of our margins and give it back to the consumer.

What are the plans for the future of Popdeck.com?

Right now we are just making our site and community better and better. We will constantly mold and improve the site. Also, expect a ton more special contest with great prizes and what not. We are also launching a gallery section, let people show off their pics and videos for prizes.