StrangeLove is an American skateboarding and lifestyle brand helmed by Sean Cliver and Nick Halkias. Before launching StrangeLove in 2018, Cliver worked as an artist and designer in the skateboarding industry since 1989, having lent his creative talents to major skateboarding brands. Beyond that, Cliver served as an editor at Big Brother magazine, and he was a producer on skating-linked TV shows Jackass and Wildboyz.
Having circulated his talents throughout the industry, Cliver teamed up with Halkias and set out to create StrangeLove as a haven for artists that was grounded in quality skateboard fabrication and performance. Cliver’s inspiration for StrangeLove’s artwork stems from his upbringing with skateboarding in the pre-Internet era of the 1970s and 1980s, so subcultural books, comics, cult movies and TV references, esoteric art, and music inspire the brand’s visual motifs. Styles like the StrangeLove Animal Farm 8.5 Skateboard DeckMutli, with its cartoon pigs, utilize illustration to create illusions that hark to political cartoons and protest imagery, hallmarks of the underground. The craft and aesthetic of skaters are celebrated in every design.
Having been founded on the experience of a skate industry insider with over 30 years of experience, StrangeLove is an authority on the sport and its history. It's no surprise that StrangeLove has also published books that survey the art and graphic design of skateboarding, along with art toys and other merchandise that express the brand’s bold and distinct aesthetic and point of view.