Thursday, May 26, 2011

Creation of the Independent Trucks logo..

Jim Phillips has a great series of development sketches for the iconic iron cross for Independent Trucks. The story goes that at first Santa Cruz (they own Independent) rejected the iron cross as a logo because they thought it was too "nazi".. then Jim found a photo of then pope john paul II, who was adorned with the image on his vestments, and Jim's argument was that if the pope can wear it, so can Santa Cruz.. Santa Cruz bought the argument, and the rest is history, resulting in the most recognizable skate logo ever created.

 Above, the iconic "iron cross" final design. Below, other designs that didn't make the cut..


3 comments:

  1. yeah... but indys always broke so easy. and gullwings were too damn heavy. i always stuck with tracker.

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  2. Ha, these used to be plastered all over my family's house (brothers used to skate); nice little back story on the logo. I always find it funny when people mistakenly attribute the Iron Cross with the Nazi party =\ It's a great design!

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  3. hahaha.. warburton, trackers with the plastic base plates?? i skated thunder trucks.

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