Ryan Lovelace Is in a Category of His Own

Ryan Lovelace Is in a Category of His Own

Most shapers learn the craft by sweeping floors at a surf shop or apprenticing under someone who's been doing it for decades. Ryan Lovelace bought foam from Home Depot on his 19th birthday because he couldn't afford a new board and didn't even know you could buy a proper blank with a stringer in it. No mentor, no formal training, no roadmap. Just curiosity and a willingness to figure it out. That origin story tells you everything about who he is. Growing up in Seattle, Lovelace eventually landed in Santa Barbara and Kauai, splitting his time between two of the most distinct surf cultures in the world. He took business classes in college, hated the idea of a corporate life, and made the leap into shaping full time. The boards he was building were already turning heads, and his instinct to document everything on social media early put him ahead of an entire generation of shapers who would later follow the same playbook.

His work sits in an interesting place. Lovelace takes classic surfboard designs and pushes them forward, with resin work that stands out for its use of color and pattern. These aren't museum pieces. They're built to be ridden hard in real surf. But they also happen to be genuinely beautiful objects. The flower inlays became a cultural moment of their own. Inspired by his grandmother's leis and his wife Katie's love of Hawaiian quiltmaking, Lovelace brought back a pressed flower trend from the 1970s and kicked off a full revival of the style. The process is painstaking. He finds flowers locally in Hawaii, deconstructs them, presses them piece by piece, and rebuilds them directly onto the board. It takes years to perfect and can't always be delivered. That's exactly the kind of thing that makes people want one even more. His work is split into two sides. Fully hand-shaped customs that bear his personal signature, and Lovemachine, his production line finished by partners around the world. He's transparent about the difference, which is rare. Most shapers blur those lines. Lovelace draws them clearly. In 2024 he won the Electric Acid Surfboard Test from Stab Magazine, with Dave Rastovich testing boards from the world's best shapers and choosing his. For a guy who started with foam from a hardware store, that's a long way to travel.His work sits in an interesting place. Lovelace takes classic surfboard designs and pushes them forward, with resin work that stands out for its use of color and pattern. These aren't museum pieces. They're built to be ridden hard in real surf. But they also happen to be genuinely beautiful objects. The flower inlays became a cultural moment of their own. Inspired by his grandmother's leis and his wife Katie's love of Hawaiian quiltmaking, Lovelace brought back a pressed flower trend from the 1970s and kicked off a full revival of the style. The process is painstaking. He finds flowers locally in Hawaii, deconstructs them, presses them piece by piece, and rebuilds them directly onto the board. It takes years to perfect and can't always be delivered. That's exactly the kind of thing that makes people want one even more. His work is split into two sides. Fully hand-shaped customs that bear his personal signature, and Lovemachine, his production line finished by partners around the world. He's transparent about the difference, which is rare. Most shapers blur those lines. Lovelace draws them clearly. In 2024 he won the Electric Acid Surfboard Test from Stab Magazine, with Dave Rastovich testing boards from the world's best shapers and choosing his. For a guy who started with foam from a hardware store, that's a long way to travel.