DEEP CUTS BY WILFRED BRANDT

"The first time I encountered the topic of semiotics, it immediately clicked. Maybe it was
growing up as a skateboarder, or someone with an interest in obscure music, or film, or
zines; but the idea that we communicate on several levels, including an iconography of signs
and symbols that carry implications, made perfect sense. Regardless of whether
skateboarding was the root cause, once I became exposed to the Rat Bones logo, the Slime
Balls emblem, and later Neil Blender’s coffee man and the World Industries pitchfork, I
started to amass an internal encyclopedia, cataloguing an arcane iconography (ascribing not
just meaning and context but a hierarchy – because skateboarders are often opinionated if
not downright snobby, like many of their subcultural brethren)"