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FORGING THE MARK
In 1988, Italian skater, artist and T-Mag’s friend, Francesco came back from Italy with a promise of bringing a new logo for H-Street that was going to change everything, as he told to T-Mag over the phone days before the trip. Francesco took a number of trips back and forth between his home in Rome and the H-Street HQ in San Diego. Once at T-Mag’s house, he spoke for a good long time before showing the logo, building it up to be so monumental that once he finally placed a hand drawn image of the famous Mark Logo, T-Mag kind of yawned; it just didn’t look like that much and certainly not what Francesco had built it up to be.
But T-Mag really liked the idea of a logo that represents skateboarding as a universal and expanding cultural phenome. When Tony Mag first started to skate in 1976, he and his friends rode everything; ramps, bowls, pools, slalom, downhill, freestyle and even some early forms of street skating. To him, skateboarding is universal, ride everything.
The other thing the two friends often spoke about was how skateboarding is a worldwide and universal sign of peace and friendship; back then, if you saw someone that skated, regardless of where they are from, who they are or what language they spoke, you had an instant connection.
In the end, everything Francesco had said about the logo would come true; the H-Street Mark Logo is one of the most recognizable icons in the skate industry and we’ve been asked a lot about how it came about it what it means. It stands for;
• Skate Everything.
• May Skateboarding Live Forever.
• May Skateboarders Bring Peace and Friendship to the World Through Skateboarding.
The Mark logos ancient origin is based on the H-street Patron Saint Andrew, who was martyred on a “Crux Decussate”, also known as a “Saltire Cross” and generally known as St. Andrews Cross.
There is also a mythical legend about the original creation of the Mark Logo, having something to do with Godzilla’s. But that’s another story altogether.