Zaturdays: Sieben's Tampa Pro Graphic Revealed!

Posted on Friday, January 8, 2016 by Paul

One of, if not the best things about making a living in skateboarding is getting the opportunity to work with the best people in the world. Skateboarders rule, we already know that, and the ones that “make it” somewhere in their chosen field, whether it be riding the board, or manufacturing boards, or filming people riding the board, or taking photos of people riding the board, or whatever, most of them are great.

Another area where skateboarding offers examples of greatness is in the area of those creating original and compelling pictures that we like to look at on the bottom of our boards. And today I present to you, Michael Sieben. (Insert applause).

Sieben is famous for a pretty insane variety of things, like doing that Internet Shack show that can still be found on the Internet. It had sort of an odd Peewee’s Playhouse meets But I’m a Cheerleader vibe, it was “bolts!”

This is a T-shirt that it turns out was NOT designed by Michael Sieben. Who knew?

But if you know anything about creating shows for the Internet, you’ll know that it’s usually a thankless and financially irresponsibly undertaking, and so while the Shack garnered critical acclaim, the kids preferred Skateline.

I hesitate to bring this up, but Sieben is also famous for being the guy who it strongly appears inspired the art for a popular snowboarder’s clothing line at a popular retail superstore. This might be a sore subject so I apologize in advance Michael.

You also might remember Roger skateboards. That was Sieben too. You may have even been a Roger of the Month. What a concept. But alas, although Roger was another well-loved undertaking, it too went the way of the Dodo.

But if you’re getting the idea that Sieben is destined for near misses, then stop, because he creates some of the greatest content on a consistent basis each month as the editor of Thrasher Magazine, and he’s also the head neighbor in charge of The Program, a skateboard company that has something to do with puppets that’s hard to explain exactly what without using up all of the space on this site.

Sieben has stuff like this in Thrasher every month.

This is The Programs Promo video and it’s ripping.

And so, with Tampa Pro only two short months away I thought I’d kick off 2016 with a Zaturdays tribute to the artist we brought in to create the art / color palette for both last year’s Tampa Am and the upcoming pro. We had one main request (in addition to like 500 smaller requests) that Michael happily obliged, we asked him to, “do something Florida-ish.” He came back with a Rick Howard inspired Gator skater for the Am, and a Matt Hensley inspired version for the Pro, and we couldn’t be more stoked. Just thought it would be rad to shout him out, he’s the best.