Craig Stecyk

Craig Robert Stecyk III (born May 19, 1950 in Los Angeles , California ) is an American photographer and graphic designer who became famous for his portrayal of the Zephyr team .

In his youth, Stecyk spent a lot of time in Venice Beach and Santa Monica , where he began to found the Zephyr Surf Shop with Jeff Ho and Skip Engblom in 1972 , where he designed the visual appearance of surfboards. His works are regarded as optical trailblazers for various subcultures, such B. surfing and skateboarding , as he pioneered the design of the products. In contrast to conventional designs, Stecyk integrated the motifs of the street cultures prevailing in these places, such as graffiti , lowrider motifs and tattoos .

Above all, the emergence of the second generation of the Zephyr team , which mainly concentrated on skateboarding , encouraged Stecyk to photographically document the rediscovered subculture. His pictures were very atypical for the genre, as skateboarding was originally a popular recreational sport among young people across the United States , and Stecyk allowed underground movements and their cultures to flow into his works. He formed the face with which the sport still identifies today and photographed greats like Tony Alva , Jay Adams , Stacy Peralta and Jim Muir , who all came from the Zephyr Skate Team .

The Skateboarder Magazine Although already published four issues of the mid- 60s , but declined due to falling popularity among. The resumption of the paper at the beginning of the 70s by the umbrella publisher Surfer Magazine was shaped by Stecyk's articles, which portrayed Dogtown and its skaters. He is also a co-founder of the Juxtapoz Magazine Collective . He also created the Vato Rat graffiti, which is very well known in circles and , along with the Dogtown Cross , is one of the most formative symbols in skateboarding circles . In 2001 he and Stacy Peralta produced the award-winning documentary Dogtown & Z-Boys , which describes the history of the Zephyr team . He currently lives in Los Angeles .