An interview with Justin Heister

Co-owner/ Art Director of Focus

This May your celebrating the 4-year anniversary of the magazine. When you started it did you ever think it would make it this far? What’s in store for the magazine in the future? It’s crazy to think this has been our lives pretty much 24hrs/day for the last 4 years, at the same time, we never had a doubt that we wouldn’t make it this far. Time really does fly when you are having fun. Sure, we face a shit-ton of new obstacles each issue, but that’s what helps keep us sharp and make the magazine better year after year.

We’ve got a lot of things planned for both the near and distant future. I can’t go into too much detail because I don’t want to look like an ass if some of it doesn’t pan out, but I can tell you we have a new video dropping this year, it’s called “Stay Focused,” and it’s going to be off the chain. We recently bought an office building here in Philly, and plan on adding to our in-house staff. Our main goal for the immediate future though, is just coming up with creative ways to support the core shops and companies and keep everything flowing.

Like every other skateboard lemming I left where I was at to move out west to skate and work in the industry, what kept you on the east coast? Did you ever thinking of trying out California?

Well, there was never a need for us to move out west... especially with Focus being an East Coast exclusive magazine. Plus, this just really feels like home. Anywhere I’ve ever lived on the East Coast has felt like home, especially Philly. California is great, I love getting out there any chance I can to visit, but I don’t think I could ever see myself calling it home.

What made you want to do collaboration with Real Skateboards for the 4-year anniversary of Focus? Being an east coast magazine wouldn’t it make more sense to do a collaboration with an East coast skate brand? Recently I went to Exit Skateshop’s grand opening and saw the sick collab deck Real did with them… we had wanted to do something like that for a long time, but never had a real reason or special occasion to even ask about. With our anniversary coming up it seemed like the perfect opportunity to give it a shot. Straight up, Real Skateboards is the shit, and the truth is Deluxe has been supporting Focus since the beginning and always believed in what we do. That’s the only type of company we would want to work with on a project like this... someone that understands what we are trying to do, and is down to support skating. It’s not a matter of east or west, this transcends that. This is about supporting skating and doing something new that everyone can benefit from. At least that’s what it means to me.