Dane Reynolds: "I Wanted To Hate This Board!"

But when Dane first unsnapped the Santa Monica Surf Case holding a few Acid Test entries with glass-on fins, his initial reaction was far less harsh than we’d imagined (hoped?). 

“Hmm, looks pretty cool,” Dane muttered, to no one in particular. 

But first impressions aren’t always lasting ones, and quickly Dane grew almost irritated by something about the board. There was something off to him, it seemed, with its amorphous outline and half-cocked Pollack-esque resin splatter. 

“I wanted to hate this board,” Dane admitted, a few days into The Trip.

Since staking out his territory in San Clemente a few years ago, Album Surfboard's Matt Parker has been subtly and not-so subtly building a following for his unorthodox, often bold, colorful, and sometimes confounding takes on alternative equipment. Parker is used to a little confusion around his designs, and has no issue being divisive. As one of the next generation of entrepreneurial surfers with a design mind, Parker's work in Graphic Design is readily apparent. 

With a focus on "alternative boards that you can still rip on," Parker has let his penchant for graphic design, architecture, and branding influence Album's vibe tremendously, from their impressively chic flagship in San Clemente, to the radical range of colors, patterns, and materials, while still managing to get some of the world's best surfers on his boards, including Josh Kerr, Eric Geiselman, and most recently, Filipe Toledo. 

Like the surfers mentioned above, asymmetrical boards have piqued Dane's interest lately. He found it particularly interesting that, with the difference in rail lengths and tail shape on the toe- and heal-side, and with the three-fin set-up, that the board almost felt like a natural thruster through turns. 

Click into the profile film above, and scroll south for a selection of images from Stab fav lensman, Alan Van Gysen.