A Little Drawing Boards

Skating may be furthest from your mind in this weather at the moment, or maybe the opposite, but here's something to get the brain going again. If anyone didn't notice the recent short burst of everybody round here riding the same boards, no it wasn't fracture for once, it was these guys...

Drawing Boards has been growing fast as a company and a team over the last couple of years, and with them especially making an impact round these parts, I had a few words with man at the helm Ad McEvoy to give a little more insight into what's behind it all.

Give us a brief low-down of what Drawing Boards is about
Drawing Boards is about fun, friends, individuality, creativity, sharing and learning .. Basically we are trying to do positive stuff for skateboarding be it getting involved with councils or hooking up open minded skaters and sponsoring events . We try to bring stuff out that is a bit different to the norm and treat the kids good.
In fact it's become abit of an obsesion .. It's in my brain all day everyday .. Not quite sure where I finish and Drawing Boards begins these days haha



What made you want to start a board company?
Me and my boyard Cyberknacks (Si) started making garms for our company "Coping" about 10 years back . After 5 years we'd sold thousands of T'shirts (which was pretty unexpected) . So we had some funds and thought we'd give making decks a go .. After all that was where our passion really was ...Peeps were backing us from what we'd done before which was rad .. Also missed nearly three years of skating from having ops on both my legs so I had a bit of time on my hands haha . It's all just grown from there ..

Who's on the team? What's so special about each of these characters?
Jak Tonge .. Silky moves , the nicest kid ..
Isaac Miller.. Pop for days and humble steeze ..
Jerry Wilson .. Out there with the best style ever ..
Potter .. Potters just Potter .. one of a kind .. Handrail monster ..
Elliot Rowe .. Mannie master .. So out of control yet so in control

Jak Tonge Hits a nosegrind in Crawley on a little
filming mission. Shot by Smay

You're currently filming for the first video. How's all that going? What can we expect?
Well the dudes above pushing themselves .. We basically want it to be a vid that's not too short and not too long . One which will hype you out before you go skating .. Easy to watch with good music .. Like a good skate vid should be haha .. But of course with the Drawing Boards vibe ..

Give us a story from one of the filming missions?
Have to be being woken up on a golf course in Leeds by an angry grounds keeper .. It went something along the lines of "Get your piece of s**t van out of my drive and get the f**k off my land" haha ...

What were you doing on a golf course?

Trying to get some shut eye haha .. We used to go on crazy tours which involved sleeping in fields , forests and on golf courses .

Potter stretches his lofty frame onto a tall Croydon rail. By Smay

Where did the name for the Leaky Quiche tour come from?
Your good self making a fuss about buying a quiche which ended up all over peeps shoes decks and the car .. Kept us all pretty amused mind you .. Good tour that .. And while I'm here thanks for the help with the filming man ..

What's Elliott's house like?
Hipster's paradise .. Don't wanna talk about it haha .. Although it has got a pool table now .. That's pretty rad eh ..

There's a heavy basis on artwork, which you do yourself. What Influences your graphics?
I've always been into drawing from a tot .. Our family never had a TV so I use to read a lot of books with pictures in 'em . My older brother use to make up stories that he'd draw as he spoke .. Guess that was my earliest influence .. Growing up skating in the early 90's , artwork was a big part of of it all .. These days there's so much stuff out there, so a lot of thought goes into what we're gonna bring out , if it's been played out what's the point ? For every graphic that's released there's five to ten that usually just sit in the pad , on the hard drive or get painted onto an old deck . The ideas usually get thrown back 'n forth between Si and myself until we come up with the goods .. Then I draw the finished ideas . Ego stifles creativity , we both criticise each other's ideas to come up with something we're both happy with and is different to what everyone else is doing . Being an artist you have the ability to put questions or ideas into peoples heads which is something I try to take on board too .. If I keep babbling on I may have to grow a moustache , move to Shoreditch and buy a fixie .. What's next ? Haha

Some boards past and present, along with the popular Circus colourways

Where are you based?
We are based in Croydon and we sponsor skaters around Surrey as well as Brighton , London , Croydon and Portsmouth

Croydon local Jerry WIlson pops in for a quick visit to Crawley skatepark. Nollie inward heel. Photo:Smay

What's your connection to the Brighton scene?
Always been down with the fact that there's so many skaters in Brighton .. When we started selling in Stevie's shop he suggested we hooked someone from the area up .. Isaac was the obvious candidate .. After meeting him properly we decided he was the man for the job .. Now Stevie's shops gone we are down to keep hooking him up ..

Local boy Isaac boots a lofty front shove while taking 8th place at the UK Championships earlier this year. Pic by James Head

Where can we buy your product down here now that Stevie's is gone? 
We sell our stuff in Ocean sports next to Goon ..

What's the Aussie connection?
Yep It's pretty mad that we are in Oz .. I went over there a number of years back to meet my estranged family haha . On the way I met a certain young gangster Donny "Fuggin" Fraser who some years later I entrusted with the running of the company Oz sides .. The team is really active over there getting busy doing demos on the East Coast and that .. Dope seeing them get mag coverage too ..

Australian rider Darth gets profiled in Slam Magazine with a gnarly front feeble

What's coming up in the near future? What do we have to be excited about?
Sponsoring the Crossfire Jam next week with some of the boys repping .. New graphics in the plan too .. Want to try an get an exhibit popping next year ..Along with some lil' edits while we slug on with the vid itself ... Some mini tours ... In fact there should be a fair bit of new stuff but you'll have to tune in to find out ...

Balance boy Elliot gets interrupted on his two-wheeled cruise to the vintage market by a small stairset and has to tre flip them. Seq by Smay again

Keep an eye on this place or the DB sites for further updates, videos, products and more

Blog updated on the regs - thedrawingboards.blogspot.com

Main site with product, team, photos an' all - www.thedrawingboards.com