From Sketch to Skateboard: How an Original deckarts Piece Actually Gets Made

Every deck in the deckarts catalogue goes through the same path: a piece of art gets chosen or commissioned, prepared specifically for a maple panel instead of a canvas or a wall, printed, checked, mounted, and shipped from Berlin. This is that process, step by step — not a marketing story, just what actually happens between an image and a piece hanging on your wall.

Step 1 — Where the art comes from

Every piece in the catalogue is either a museum-era work whose copyright has expired — Van Gogh, Klimt, Bosch, Caravaggio, work old enough to be in the public domain — or a piece by a living artist working under a direct collaboration agreement. There's no third category: nothing is scraped, no image is used without either being legally public domain or explicitly licensed from the person who made it. The Working with Artists page covers exactly how that collaboration works, including that artists are paid a royalty per order and keep their own copyright.

For an original piece by a living artist, this step is a real conversation rather than a formality. Danilo Cunha, who works under the name Noise Propaganda, controls every part of his brand himself — the logo, the colours, the symbol he uses — and that same control extends to how his stencil-and-collage pieces get chosen and positioned for a deck. Different artists work in completely different ways, and step 1 respects whichever method produced the image in the first place, rather than forcing every artist through an identical intake process.

Step 2 — Preparing a file for an 85 × 20 cm panel

A single deck is roughly 4.25:1, tall and narrow — a shape almost nothing is originally composed for, whether it's a five-century-old oil painting or a piece made yesterday on a tablet. This is the step most people underestimate: a painting or illustration has to be recomposed, not just resized, to work at that ratio.

Three different outcomes are possible once a piece is evaluated against that shape:

It fits a single panel as-is or close to it — a tall or naturally vertical composition, or a detail chosen from within a larger work rather than showing the whole thing shrunk down.

It's spread across a diptych or triptych instead — a wide painting gets more room to breathe across two or three boards rather than being squeezed into one, keeping detail and proportion intact.

It's recomposed entirely — for character or illustration work especially, sometimes the strongest single element of a piece is pulled out and given the whole panel to itself, rather than shrinking a busier full composition down to fit.

Getting this step wrong is the single most common reason a print disappoints — not the printing itself, but a composition that never suited the shape it was forced into.

Whatever the source, the file that goes to print is high resolution — typically scanned or photographed well beyond print resolution for a museum piece, or supplied as a high-res source file directly from a living artist — because the print stands roughly 85 cm tall, about five times the size of a phone screen, and any softness in the source becomes visible at that scale.

Step 3 — Why maple, specifically

The blank panel is Grade-A 7-ply Canadian maple — the same laminated hard-rock maple construction used in decks meant to actually be ridden, pressed under heat into the familiar skateboard shape and profile. That's a deliberate choice rather than a cosmetic one. Hard maple sits at roughly 1,450 lbf on the Janka hardness scale, the standard measure of a wood's resistance to denting and wear — meaningfully harder than the softwoods or MDF panels used in a lot of cheaper "skateboard-style" wall decor.

Beyond hardness, laminated 7-ply construction resists warping far better than a single sheet of any wood would, and gives the panel the specific concave-and-kicktail profile that makes the finished piece read as an actual skateboard rather than a wood panel cut into a skateboard silhouette.

Step 4 — UV printing, and what that actually means

The image is printed directly onto the sealed maple surface with UV-cured inks: ink is laid down and then hardened almost instantly with ultraviolet light, rather than air-drying over hours the way conventional ink does. That matters for two practical reasons. First, the ink bonds to the wood surface itself instead of sitting on a separate layer of paper or film laid over the top — there's no laminate, no decal, no visible seam between the image and the object. Second, because the ink cures on contact, colour stays sharp-edged rather than bleeding slightly into the wood grain the way a slower-drying ink might. UV-curing itself is a standard, widely used industrial printing method, not something specific to deckarts — what's specific here is applying it to a shaped, structural maple panel rather than a flat sheet.

Production happens through a mix of an in-house European workshop and vetted print partners closer to customers in other regions, which keeps shipping times reasonable on both sides of the Atlantic without compromising the printing method or the wood itself — every partner works to the same 7-ply Canadian maple and UV-print specification, regardless of which side of the ocean an order ships from.

Step 5 — Quality check and hardware

Each printed deck is checked against four things before it's approved to ship:

That last point matters for the unboxing experience as much as the checklist: the mounting fixture is attached at this stage, so the piece arrives ready to hang without separate hardware to source or attach yourself.

Step 6 — Packaging and shipping from Berlin

Finished pieces are packed in protective packaging sized for the maple panel's shape — not a generic box, since a flat rectangular box handles a shaped, concave panel poorly — and shipped from Berlin worldwide. A single deck ships as one panel; a diptych or triptych ships as separate boards meant to be hung together as a set, not as one pre-assembled object.

How a custom order changes the process

A custom order follows the same six steps with one difference at step 1: instead of choosing from the existing catalogue, you supply the image yourself — a photo, your own artwork, a logo. Step 2 becomes the most important conversation in the whole process, since a custom file hasn't already been tested against the deck's proportions the way every catalogue piece has. See our guide on designing your own piece for what makes a file work well at this stage.

FAQ

Is the art actually printed onto the wood, or is it a sticker or laminate?

It's printed directly onto the sealed maple surface using UV-cured inks, which bond to the wood as they cure rather than sitting as a separate layer on top of it. There's no decal, laminate, or paper layer between the image and the deck.

Why use real skateboard-shaped maple instead of a flat wood panel?

Grade-A 7-ply Canadian maple is the same construction used in decks built to be ridden — laminated layers pressed into the familiar concave, kicktail shape. Hard maple sits at roughly 1,450 lbf on the Janka hardness scale, meaningfully harder than the MDF or softwood used in a lot of cheaper alternatives, and the laminated construction resists warping better than a single sheet would. The genuine skateboard shape is also what makes the finished piece read as an actual deck rather than a wood cutout in a skateboard silhouette.

What happens if a painting doesn't naturally fit the deck's shape?

One of three things: it's recomposed to fit a single panel using a detail or a tighter crop, it's spread across a diptych or triptych to preserve the full composition, or for character-driven work, the strongest single element is sometimes pulled out and given the whole panel rather than shrinking a busier scene down. Which approach fits depends entirely on the specific piece.

Does every piece come from the same workshop?

Production runs through a mix of an in-house European workshop and vetted print partners in other regions, mainly to keep shipping times reasonable for customers on both sides of the Atlantic. Every partner works to the same 7-ply Canadian maple and UV-print specification regardless of where an order ships from.

What gets checked before a deck ships?

Colour accuracy against the approved file, the print itself for defects like banding or misalignment, the physical panel for warping or damage, and that the wall-mount hardware is properly fitted — all four before anything is approved to ship.

How is a custom order different from a catalogue piece?

The process is the same from printing onward. The difference is at the start: you supply the image instead of choosing an existing piece, and because a custom photo or design hasn't already been tested against the deck's tall, narrow proportions, getting the composition right becomes the most important part of the order.

Article summary

Every deckarts piece follows the same path: the art is either genuinely public domain or licensed directly from a living artist under a royalty agreement; the composition is recomposed — not just resized — to suit the deck's roughly 4.25:1 shape, whether that means a single panel, a diptych or triptych, or pulling out a single strong element; the blank is real Grade-A 7-ply Canadian maple (Janka hardness ~1,450 lbf, well above MDF or softwood alternatives), laminated and pressed into an actual skateboard shape; the image is UV-printed directly onto the sealed wood surface, bonding as it cures; each piece passes a four-point check (colour, print defects, panel condition, mounting hardware) before shipping from Berlin in shape-specific packaging. A custom order follows the same steps, with the image supplied by the customer instead of chosen from the catalogue.

About the author

Stanislav Arnautov is the founder of deckarts, a graphic designer and print specialist originally from Ukraine, now based in Berlin, where he personally designs and prepares every deck. Follow the work on Instagram or at stasarnautov.com.