Introduction
It goes without saying that a skateboard without grip tape is barely rideable. The purpose is to provide grip and ensure your feet don’t slip off the board when riding. There’s some great brands producing some great products in the skateboard grip tape market. Companies like Thrasher, MOB, Grizzly and Almost Skateboards lead this market and offer some great variations and designs that riders love. Besides the main brands there’s many independant enthusiasts designing and creating some incredible artwork and this article will curate the best designs from companies and other designers.
Grizzly Grip tape is a top company producing skate grip tape in variations not done by most other companies. The minimalistic style compliments a great skateboard. The logo or image isn’t always filling the face of the board or covering it in plain fluorescent colours like some companies. Originally starting in a garage stamping grip tapes with a small bear design Torey Pudwill’s father made. Torey and friends eventually managed to start selling these to skate shops within his area and has grown from there. Eventually in 2010 the company officially launched and they’ve worked on growing the brand ever since.
Grizzly Grip Tape
Below are some images of Grizzly grip tapes. The first image is actually of the stamp that was created for the first grip tapes Torey sold in his town and to the right of that is the design that they first sold back in 2010, simple yet easily identifiable and gives a nice bit of life to the top of a board.
It’s not just a plain stamp that look great on a grip tape. Grizzly also make various other designs that mix a design cut and a full print. I have added some of my favourite designs below.
MOB Skateboard Grip Tape
MOB griptape is another huge company making some gorgeous designs that are quite different to Grizzly. While Grizzly is very simple and has a dominant theme throughout most of their designs, MOB on the other hand produce grip tape designs that are very different. Very intricate artwork, repetitive patterns, vibrant block colours, branded designs and even genuine photographs fit brilliantly on a board. The santa cruz hand (pictured below) has been modified time and time again giving MOB loads of great grip tapes. I love this design. Below is the santa cruz hand and some other nice designs provided by MOB.
Diamond Supply Co.
Thirdly, Diamond Supply Co. A very upper class and minimalistic company that doesn’t specialize in just grip tape although they do produce some great designs. The tape produced by Diamond is often minimalistic, geometric and repetitive, with calm colours that evidently have a great colour scheme. Below are some images of the nicest designs produced by Diamond Supply Co.
Other Skate Deck Tape Designs
Gorgeous grip tape designs aren’t just sold by the top brands, great artists and graphic designers but there’s a community of weekend designers or hobbyists that design and create some stunning designs for all types of boards.
The following are various images posted by individuals that are a little more unique than the others above.
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