From ska to emo:The checkered pattern
Few patterns carry the emotional weight of a checkerboard — a grid that once symbolized unity now screams nostalgia, rebellion, and transformation. From 2-tone ska to 2007 MySpace profiles, the checkered pattern has traveled far and deep into music and fashion subcultures — especially emo.
From Unity to Attitude: Checkerboard in Ska
Bands like The Specials and Madness used the checkerboard to symbolize racial integration: black and white squares side-by-side, just like the band members and their audience. It was bold, graphic, and political.
Here is the album cover "69 Candy Street" of a 4th wave (that's now!) ska band, Death of Guitar Pop - I recommend it - featuring the checker board as well!
Vans Slip-Ons and Skater Style
In 1977, Vans released the Style #48 — the now-legendary Classic Slip-On.
With its checkerboard upper, this skate shoe became a subcultural icon. It was worn by professional skaters, musicians, and featured in movies like Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
The pattern’s high contrast and rebellious attitude gave it staying power across multiple scenes.
Checkerboard Goes Emo
The early 2000s marked a revival of the checkerboard pattern in punk, emo, and scene subcultures. As nostalgia for ska and early pop-punk grew, so did the visual motifs associated with them.
Emo kids adopted the checkerboard not for its political roots but for its symbolism of contrast — structure and chaos, black and white, loud and quiet — mirroring the emotional contradictions at the heart of emo music. The original symbolism of acceptance fits emo as well.
Checkerboard became part of the emo uniform. MySpace backgrounds, digital collages, and DIY zines used versions of the pattern. What started as a ska staple evolved into an emo canvas of emotional distortion.
Color, Chaos & DIY: Emo Reclaims the Grid
Emo didn’t just borrow the checkerboard — it mutated it. Traditional black and white was joined by color variations that dripped with emotional symbolism.
Color Alterations
Hot pink & black is probably the most iconic emo remix. This combo screams 2007 MySpace energy.
The deeper tones of purple & black, blue & black, red & black add emotional weight and angst to the pattern.
Scene kids (a cousin of emo) often embraced loud neons over a checkered base with neon overlays, and this is not unfamiliar to emo.
Symbols on the Squares: Emo Personalizes the Pattern
The grid became a backdrop for personal storytelling. Emo artists and DIY artist would overlay symbols like butterflies, hearts, skulls, and razor blades, broken glass, lyrics, or crying eyes.
These overlays turned a simple geometric print into a chaotic emotional collage — a kind of visual journaling. Each element became a metaphor for the emo experience: beauty in pain, fragility in defiance.
One emerging variation features a butterfly on every light square and a flower on every dark square — a poetic contrast of transformation and growth, order and softness.
While not a common mainstream pattern, it captures the spirit of emo's expressive DIY evolution.
From the Journal of Sadie Hollow
Sadie Hollow, designer of Notes of a Teenage Dirtbag, a guided journal for emos, and the very emo coloring book Distorted but still Here, explores these kinds of visual symbols.
Her work reflects a lo-fi, deeply personal aesthetic where patterns like the checkerboard aren’t just decoration — they’re emotional architecture.
Some of these patterns are also available as phone cases.
The Grid Lives On
While checkerboards also appear in mainstream design, their resonance in emo and scene culture is unique. The emo community didn’t just adopt the pattern — they distressed it, recolored it, and made it scream.
What began as a symbol of racial unity became a backdrop for identity, pain, and emotional self-expression. Emo made the checkerboard theirs — and it still pulses with that legacy.
🖤🖤🖤
Further reading on the checkered pattern's cultural journey: