Jart Skateboards origin
Jart Skateboards was born in 2001 in Irun, a town located next to the sea in Euskadi, so near to the border with France. It was founded by three young brothers that didn’t thought on becoming Jart Skateboards, the skate brand leading Europe.
The brothers decided to start this project for different reasons. They growed up in a family with a huge experience in the tinder industry, by the way they were skateboarding, surfing and snowboarding passionates, as gliding is something common in the lifestyle of Basque people.
Igor, Iban and Ander Iraola decided to shake all these factors creating Jart Skateboards. There are many rumours about “Jart” meaning, the truth is that it comes from a spaniard slang word and means “heavy”, “amazing”, “awesome”…
Everything started with a logo that represents the knots in the wood, it will become the Classic Jart logo.
Jart, starting manufacturing skateboards from scratch
Starting a business is not easy all, specially when your goal is creating your product from scratch and your project involves all the production process.
Having a skate brand, getting some marketing, designing a product, getting the raw materials, manufacturing, promoting and selling skates. There are a really few skate brands managing all the cycle of life of his products, and there are even less skate brands doing it and keeping between the best skateboard brands in the world, Jart Skateboards does.
The first decks were manufactured in a garage, a handmade manufacturing process and using the brain to get the needed tools and machines to get a skateboard. They created thier own presses, cut templates and screen printing machines to made their own skateboards.
The skateboard factory that will become the biggest skateboard factory in Europe was just born.
Spreading a skate brand
Jart started working on his own image and building a skate team for the brand, at the same time the Iraola brothers put skates and tees in all the streets, every skater in the country was wearing Jart and skating Jart, so local people started supporting the brand.
Jart Skateboards started growing up and becoming a renowed skate brand around Europe.
Names such as Alain Goikoetxea, Iván Rivado, Mark Frolich began representing Jart Skateboards, at the same time that young guns were growing up in the team.
From a local brand to an international brand with international team
Jart got his place in the market, with a good skates at good price. The formula is easy, american wood quality with european manufacturing.
The team became international and riders like Ricky Webb, Denny Pham, Nick Fiorini or Youness Amrani were part of it.
During 2011 Bastien Salabanzi got into the brand team as pro skater, making a top skate team that would be recognized worldwide. Bastien had his own skate video part in the video “All you need” and he made it into the Street League with a Jart board, something historic for the brand.
In 2013 it appeared Fran Molina, a youg skater with a really good projection, by the way we started to see in the brand skaters as Adrien Bulard or the young portuguese machines Jorge Simoes and Gustavo Ribeiro that they were just kids.
HLC factory evolution
The factory and the manufacturing process had the same evolution than the skate team.
It began with a handmade process, then the brothers opened the first skateboard factory in an industrial builing.
The business growed up and the factory started offering different products and services but keeping working with Jart Skateboards.
Nowadays they are located in Oiartzun, a sencond factory bigger and better from 2018 august is running as the business was demaning a bigger and better building.
Jart skateboards present and future
Jart Skateboards has his own factory, and it is the factory with the best technology around Europe in skateboard terms.
The boards are made with 100% canadian maple imported from Canadá forests. Then the plies are glued and pressed board by board.
Once pressed, the skateboards are going into another section of the factory. There the holes are made and they get cut, then they get sanded and are ready to be barnished.
Once the boards have been barnished they go into a new factory section, there the graphic is put on the skateboard.
We have a skateboard with his graphic ready to send to the shops, we only need to put a handtag.
Jart skateboard decks, complete skateboards and many more
The brand has became big and it has a huge product catalogue where you can find jart skateboard decks for the core skaters.
Jart Complete Skateboards with a high quality finish and at a good price, good skate wheels in different shapes and formulas. And obviously a lot of skate accessories such as Jart bearings, Jart tools, Jart bolts…
They have recently launched Jart Printed Griptapes, they get Jessup Griptape to put Jart graphics and logos on it.
Jart Skateboards compromise
It’s a fact that Jart Skateboards has a big compromise with the skateboarding community and with our mother Earth.
They made a lot of skateboard championships, events and demos around different cities and countries. By the way, Jart is compromised with the evironment, the manufacturing process manages all the residues, waste and dust properly.
Jart made different solidarity actions too, in 2017 they made a project along with Chillida Foundation. They sold a 100 limited edition skateboard series to get one goal, collecting money for a group of women from India victims of the gender violence and brutality.
Finally, we want to say something that we can trust, there’s no skater around HLC factory that has no board to skate. A lot of skater boys and skate girls get help and boards from Jart and its factory, and that’s something that deserves to be appointed.
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Like!! Great article post.Really thank you! Really Cool.