HS was originally a surfboard company, that, in the early 1970s, began making skateboards from leftover fiberglass. It was started by Santa Cruz High surfers and buddies Richard Novak, Doug Haut and Jay Shuirman. In the mid-1970s, they hired another ex-SCHS alum Jim Phillips as a graphic artist. Phillips had impressed them with his rock posters and went to work designing logos for the company's growing skateboard line in an era when skateboard art as we know it today was all but nonexistent.

Phillips developed the first SCS logo in 1978, creating by hand the distinctive slanted typeface, in which the A's in “Santa Cruz” are closed triangles. Starting with the generic lettering font that was double screened on the bottom of boards, the logo developed next into the drop shadowed “Strip”, then the “SC” with strip in the mid-section. Jay Shuirman then told Jim Phillips “…I see the lettering on top of a red circle…” Jay later instructed Jim to put “Santa” on top of “Cruz” in a red circle and the famous Santa Cruz Dot logo was born. He added a second color as a drop shadow, and the logo became the dominant brand image of the up-and-coming company. The lettering of the logo remains nearly unchanged today.