The Screaming Hand was first created in 1985 and immediately connected with skateboarders world wide.
Where did Jim Phillips get the inspiration for the Screaming Hand?
"I’m often asked where I got the idea for the Screaming Hand... like I had a store where I could get images. Sometimes an idea just pops in my mind, and I’ve trained myself to be receptive. Screaming Hand dates back to high school where I liked to spend my time drawing epic surfing and skate-board pictures and give them to my friends. In typical surf scenes, I would draw a big wave and a goofy surfer with sight gags like circling shark fins or a clenched hand sticking out of the water like a drowning guy. That intrigued me after I saw a drowned guy at the beach, snot coming out of his nose after some men tried to revive him, the first dead person I ever saw. Stuck in my mind, I drew the clenched hand on my book covers and notepads. Fast forward, and NHS is forming a wheel line and asked for a logo for Speed Wheels Santa Cruz. As I sat at my drawing table and clenched my left hand, I penciled a sketch, thinking about how powerful the hand is, how artists have used it in gestures to express emotion. Then I thought about it being even more expressive if it had a mouth right on the palm, and how much more if it was screaming! I got pretty worked up and knew my drawing would make a cool logo, though it took some time to talk the manager into it. We made stickers and T-shirts, and soon the Screaming Hand proved itself as a powerful icon that certainly earned its own way."
The Screaming Hand is a timeless skateboarding symbol that stuck through generations of old and new school skateboarders. Today, it is probably the most recognizable graphic in skateboarding history.
