Design for skateboarding
Skateboarding is a potent creative laboratory. Long before it was noticed by LVMH and Nike, the skate industry served as an unfiltered playground for building brands where authenticity is the only currency. It is a culture where identity is lived rather than merely seen.
Street Machine:
the Paris underground
In the early 90s, Europe was in the midst of a street skating explosion, and Street Machine was its Parisian epicenter. Joining as the shop’s first sales “kid”, I metamorphosed my obsession with skate culture into a role as a self-taught graphic designer driven by DIY instinct.
This wasn’t just a retail space; it was a social and cultural hub where the Parisian streets met the aesthetics of American skate culture. My time at Street Machine was foundational - learning to translate our localist perspective into everything the shop produced. From flyers and skate decks to appearing in skate magazines myself, this era proved that influential design isn’t always taught in a classroom.
“Alex’s graphic design and understanding of design was key.”
Don Brown
Director of marketing, Etnies & éS Footwear
In 1994, I moved from the scene in Paris to the heart of the skate industry in Orange County, California. At 19, I stepped into the role of art director at Etnies during its most aggressive growth phase. This was a masterclass in scaling a subcultural icon into a global powerhouse. My work focused on evolving the brand’s visual language - from technical footwear design to high-impact advertising - ensuring it remained the authoritative voice in a rapidly maturing market.
Etnies: the California transition
Tasked with conceiving a premium, performance-driven sister brand to Etnies, I looked to the DNA of the parent company and came up with: Etnies + Skateboarding = éS. The brand’s identity was born from a signature-style script I was developing for an Etnies t-shirt; I joined the “e” and “s” into a singular, fluid mark and transplanted the dot from the Etnies "i" to form the French accent "é." This subtle typographic nod to the brand’s French origins launched éS Footwear in 1995, setting a new aesthetic standard for technical skate shoes that remains an industry benchmark 30 years later.
The birth of éS Footwear
