I first started designing surfboards. My design inspirations came from surfing waves essentially, competing in surf contests and collaborating with surfers that influenced my style.
My first sponsor of surfboards was Dewey Weber. He started me designing with my first board by telling me to keep track of the board’s measurements, and he told me then how to measure the surfboard. The length, widths in the center, 12 inches back from the nose, 12 inches up from the tail end, the tail, and the thickness.
Dewey and Iggy, Deweys’ primary shaper, would try different shapes. As I observed the process, I learned what went into the thinking of each design. Dewey was into overall functionality in his plans, enabling him to do whip turns, cut-backs, and get noserides. Iggy was into speed, and long flowing turns on big waves. Both were very skilled surfers, but they each focused on different parts of the board, so I was able to take advantage of both knowledge banks.
When I look down the line of a wave as I’m riding it, I see changes in the contours of the face. I watch the wave keenly, indicating that the crest will section, or wall up, maybe hold up or pop up. If I know the surf at a particular spot, especially if it’s a point-break, I can anticipate exactly what the wave will do and prepare a maneuver around it, but if I don’t know the surf at this spot, I will cautiously make a move that will take on the challenge that the wave poses, whataever it is, using my confident moves. If the board follows my direction, the shape is working; if it doesn’t, I know I have to modify the design.
Next comes the choice in the modification and the composition that will enable the board to follow my direction where it didn’t before.
With surfboards, unlike photoshop, writing or acting, my feet were my brushes. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to surf since 2005 due to bad knees and I now have spinal stenosis. I am turning 74 years older and mainly design images in Photoshop, as an alternate form of expression. So, what I am getting at is that I am using my surfing skills as the basis for my creations.
Here is a modification of The Ugly Crest that I created a while ago. Recently I figured that the character on the right had to be a woman. It was almost the mirror image of the man on the left. I thought of this change for a variety of reasons. I won’t tell you what they are but let me show you what I did.
This new image represents the perception of how I see the appeal of surfing reaching out to more women. So I will replace the old crest with this new one in the Shoppe logo and on the men’s t-shirts, hoodies, hats, etc.; I’ll also add it to a line of women’s tops.
