Alien Workshop
Alien Workshop is probably the most legendary East Coast skateboarding company. The brand was founded in 1990 by Mike Hill, Neil Blender and Chris Carter. Thanks to the creative visions of Carter and Hill and the focus on a street-heavy image, the company quickly became well-known. Particularly crucial to the brand's rapid success were its unique graphic concepts. The video productions had an equally big impact on the growing skate scene. The first production, Memory Screen, convinced with rough street skating mixed with graphic stagings that further manifested the image of Alien Workshop. Another milestone followed in 1997 in the form of Time Code with a team full of promising street skaters like Josh Kalis or Lennie Kirk. Finally, in 2000, Photosynthesis followed, another landmark that officially launched the Love Park era and left a lasting impression on thousands of skateboarders. At the same time, Joe Castrucci was hired to film for video projects and edit the workshop films. Castrucci later founded the subsidiary company Habitat Skateboards and took a part of the growing team along with him. The Company was featured with a small section in the Photosynthesis video.
After Photosynthesis came a period of steady growth for Alien Workshop and Habitat, which benefited mostly from the East Coast image. However, there was some restructuring within the team. The takeover of DNA Distribution by Burton Snowboards, which included Alien Workshop and Habitat, weakened the brand permanently. The last video of this era was Mind Field, which was supposed to present the new Workshop. New additions like Dylan Rieder, Omar Salazar and Arto Saar sounded promising, but the expected success failed to materialize. In 2012, longtime team rider Rob Dyrdek bought Alien Workshop and DNA. In 2013, Mikey Talar, AVE and Dill left the team, apparently dissatisfied with the direction the brand was taking. In 2014, resources were finally exhausted and Alien Workshop temporarily disappeared from the scene.
In 2015, Hill launched a new attempt to revive Alien Workshop together with the legendary Tum Yeto Distribution. With an all-amateur team, the Workshop launched a new era with the video "Bunker Down."
Today, Alien Workshop is once again independently run and headquartered in Ohio. With pros like Frankie Spears, Yaje Popson and Joey Guevara, those who are responsible can look to the future with confidence.
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