Fucking Awesome

Fucking Awesome sits at the exact point where core street skating and streetwear hype meet, and it got there without ever pandering. It’s a skater-owned brand where the graphics, the team and the videos all pull from the same uncompromising, art-driven sensibility.

History

The board company dates to 2013, when Jason Dill and Anthony Van Engelen (AVE) walked away from Alien Workshop to do their own thing, but the name goes back much further: Dill’s clothing line, originally just called “Dill” and stocked by Supreme, was rebranded Fucking Awesome in 2001. The name was coined during a taxi ride in England, and photographer and director Mike Piscitelli, co-creator of the original clothing brand, sketched the logo on a napkin, pulling from Hulkamania and Misfits lettering.

You can’t tell the FA story without Supreme. James Jebbia picked up Dill’s original tees, FA decks hung on the wall of the Supreme New York store, and in 2014 the brand’s young team of Tyshawn, Na-Kel, Sean Pablo, Sage Elsesser and Dylan Rieder broke out in cherry, William Strobeck’s era-defining Supreme video. In April 2015 Dill and AVE launched sister brand Hockey Skateboards, with Donovon Piscopo and John Fitzgerald as its first riders. In 2016 the camp took its hardest blow when Dylan Rieder died from complications of leukemia. The first flagship store opened on Hollywood Boulevard in 2019, featuring Dill’s artwork and, memorably, an LAPD police car mounted inside as an art installation; a second store followed in Lower Manhattan in 2021. In 2022 Tyshawn Jones and Na-Kel Smith left to start King Skateboards. Across all of it, the FA/Hockey camp has built a video legacy every bit as distinctive as its boards.

The team

Both founders still ride for the brand, which tells you plenty about how it’s run. Alongside Dill and AVE, the current roster includes Gino Iannucci, Sage Elsesser, Elijah Berle, Kevin Bradley, Aidan Mackey, Louie Lopez, Curren Caples, Jake Anderson and Romel Torres. The historic names carry real weight too: Dylan Rieder, Tyshawn Jones, Na-Kel Smith, Sean Pablo and Kevin Terpening.

Boards: Class Photo, Shape 1 and grail finishes

FA’s signature graphic since the early days is the Class Photo series: the riders’ actual childhood school portraits, often glitched or defaced, printed straight onto the deck. Many run on Shape 1, Dill’s distinctive blunt-nosed Shovel Nose. Then there are the special editions, holographic foil overlays, embossed wood graphics and split-dye veneers, which routinely sell out and resell as grails. Per woodshop directories like NOTE and Gentlemen Skateboards, FA decks are pressed at the BBS woodshop in Mexico, with printing and distribution handled by Generator in Oceanside, California.

Who it’s for

FA is a premium buy for skaters who want hard street pedigree with collector appeal, sold through core shops and the brand’s own flagships. The collab list maps its position precisely: adidas Skateboarding (Dill’s Experiment 1 and 2 signature shoes, first dropped in November 2020), Vans (AVE’s Pro shoe, with earlier Dylan Rieder-era ties) and Independent Trucks. If you’re hunting for one, you can compare it against every other deck in the comparator.