Limitless By Design: Alien Workshop x CCS

Joey O'Brien - photo by Price

CCS has believed in the Sovereign Sect of the Alien Workshop ever since they emerged from Dayton, Ohio at the dawn of the nineties. We were baffled by Memory Screen, escaped hell with Timecode, dropped our jaws at Photosynthesis, freaked out with Mind Field, got hyped with Life Splicing, and leveled up with Bunker Down. And if you haven't watched Joey O'Brien's breakthrough [Untitled] 005 part recently, treat yourself.

And now the limitless design becomes literal as the Workshop abducts the Customs X tools so you can create you own signature Sect selections. Manipulate the OG AWS logos, take chromatic control of the Spectrum, and create endless New God exaltations for custom shirts, hoodies, grip, and decks.

But before you get lost in the infinity of endless AWS, join us for a quick dip into the deep end of the CCS archives for a look back at Alien.

Our deepest cut goes all the way back to the California Cheap Skates catalog of the Winter of 1991, which featured a quartet of pro decks from the OG AWS squad with Neil Blender, Duane Pitre, Steve Claar, and "Bob" Dyrdek. At 9.5", those decks are no joke!

Next up is the skateboard deck page from the Summer of 1992 CCS catalog. In just a few months, skateboarding decks and skating overall had shifted significantly. Here we have Pitre and Thomas Morgan's 8.25" decks from that issue. Anybody else got a hankering for some eggs?

A 1993 CCS catalog T-Shirt spread features both the legendary Believe graphic as well as the "Clone" design that would soon be the basis for Alien's Clone Wheels brand.

Looks like size XL was really popular in those days. That tracks.

No graphic has been featured more consistently in the pages of the CCS than the Alien Workshop Spectrum logo deck. Here is one of the first sightings (and it's a slick!) from a 1994 catalog.

In that very same issue, 3 of the 5 logos you can utilize in the Customs X Alien Workshop collaboration were prognosticated with the Workshop's dope suede bottom backpack.

You better believe it: A 1997 CCS catalog featured a whole gang of Alien Workshop complete options, including the classic Believe graphic (with Trackers) and the Brainwash graphic, which can occasionally be found on the (web)pages of CCS.com to this day.

And before you start complaining about how cheap skateboards used to be, realize that $84.99 in 1997, when adjusted for inflation, is the equivalent of $153.73 in contemporary dollars.

Here is a T-Shirt selection page from a 2001 CCS catalog with the triumphant OG Alien logo shirt still at the top of the pile. Those "Ride Everything" graphics were dope, too.

And no trip to a 2001 CCS catalog is complete without checking in on the greatest orange colored VHS tape of all time:

Let's warp ahead a decade to one of the many, many catalogs we printed in 2011. This one is from the Back To School edition, and features a special CMYK edition complete of the Alien Workshop Spectrum deck.

Want to recreate this masterpiece? Now you can color up the Spectrum graphic any way you want with Customs X AWS. Go ahead and try it out.

While we're leaping by decades, jump to the modern era with a look at the 2021 Holiday CCS catalog, which featured a foil edition of the Spectrum deck.

For over 30 years Alien Workshop has been infiltrating our minds, influencing our style, dirtying up our ledges, and on constant rotation in our VCRs, DVD players, and Youtube playlists. CCS is proud to be part of the journey. We've always dreamed of getting to create our own unique Workshop products.

The hour is here.