How Much Do You Pay For A Logo? | Surfpolitik

This article was originally supposed to be published last week, following Grant Miller’s article ‘Lifting The Lid On The Industry’, but a fast-moving surfboard threw a spanner in the works.

Long story short: a broken beak and a sore head, but unbelievably not a stain on my board. A timely testament to good craftsmanship.

Grant made a lot of points, not all of which I agreed with. Two points I did agree with were his views on marketing in the surfboard industry and a brief comment at the end about keeping track of your own design history.

Although they seem like disparate ideas, they are closely related to me. Let me start with the idea of ​​keeping your own boards.

Stab In The Dark is a great name for a contest. It’s obviously a reference to Stab, who organize the contest, but for those who’ve never seen it, the premise is simple: a pro surfer is given thirteen blank white boards – no shaper marks, no dimensions – and rides them all, tweaking the numbers until he picks the best board.

While the concept may be extreme, I see people rotating through boards in exactly the same way. Groping in the dark is a lot less fun when you’re paying $1,000 a roll. Although the bigger issue for me isn’t so much the money, but the groping around that comes with it.

Italo Ferreira during the last Stab In The Dark (Stab)

Just as we learn where waves come from, how sand moves, and why some coastlines produce better waves, it is the job of the experienced surfer to build a knowledge base on all aspects of surfing.

I don’t want a board to be completely new to me; I want it to build on my previous boards. Why build this knowledge base of design if every purchase starts from scratch? Constant learning is the goal. It’s the easiest and most fun learning you’ll ever do.

I largely work according to the idea of ​​Corey Graham, a surfer from Torquay, that ‘surfboard models should be the starting point, not the end point.’

To do this, you need to be aware of how you surf and, in general, what designs work best for you—all applied with generous helpings of brutal honesty. Then, find a style you like from a shaper you respect—importantly, don’t stray too far from their area of ​​expertise—and strike up a conversation.

A few mouse clicks are all it takes, or a little extra sanding during finishing.

I have a board in the making now. A slightly modified copy of a board I rode in 2019, itself a slightly modified copy of one of the shapers popular models. So it’s two degrees removed from a straight model, but still a true custom board. When people think of digital files they think of exact replication, but controlled customization is an equally powerful aspect.

The shapers I get boards from have digital records of all the boards I’ve ordered. The only record I keep is stored in the gray matter, but it’s still a solid record of what works for me. Combined, it’s an amalgam of many shapes and curves, tested and refined over decades to create a foundation, or a base code, I don’t really know what to call it.

But whatever it’s called, it’s an idea I go back to when I’m drifting or bored with surfing. I go back to that feeling of what works and push it in a different direction: maybe flatter, maybe wider, maybe rounder…whatever.

And here’s the bit where one point connects to the other – at least in my eyes.

Because I have a strong sense of what works for me, I feel little pressure from the changing winds of marketing. Sure, it’s great to see Torren wielding that mid-length twin, but I have no interest in buying one – it just wouldn’t work, and test rides have confirmed that. The same goes for the gear under the feet of Asher, Rasta, Kerrzy, Margo… you name the freesurfer you want.

Am I saying I am immune to marketing and fashion?

Well, a little bit, but that’s not really what I mean.

The point is that you can ride exactly the same boards that the surfers above are riding, but if you understand both how to surf and also how digital files can be modifiedthen you can get a truly custom-made version of any high-end model.

The last few times I’ve clicked on Facebook Marketplace, I’ve seen an ad for a shaper that has piqued my curiosity. “Custom high-end boards from one of Oz’s best board manufacturers,” the ad reads.

The shaper lives 1,000 miles away from me, as does the board factory he uses. The ad continues: ‘Any custom shape… high-end boards without the retail margins.’

It was easy enough for me to figure out where the boards were made, how they were made (machine cut and hand finished) and what a potential customer can expect (good quality), although the reason I mention is not to promote his wares. The reason is to show that the digital age is not fully utilized by customers, so in turn we fall prey to cunning marketers.

Make no mistakes, there are no secrets in the shaping world anymore. Any shaper working with software should be able to source or create any shape and have it made. There is no copyright and anyway, the differences between models on the performance level are small.

So there is no copyright, but there is personal pride. Would the shaper you are working with willingly copy a well-known model from another shaper? That is a difficult question to ask unless you know the shaper very well. And besides, go to the original shaper if you want an exact replica.

This question interests me more: Would they use a model as a starting point and then modify it to your specifications?

In the digital age, all surfboard designs are available to all shapers. When you understand this, marketing is the most powerful thing in the market. How much are you willing to pay for that logo?

The goal of all this is not to create a race to the bottom in terms of prices, but to defy the market trends. I don’t surf like a pro and neither do you – we all surf differently.

If a shaper you respect provides customer service and a durable product for a fair price, then the rest is meaningless.

//STU NETTLE