If you have a skateboard company you can go for different aesthetics. You can chose being stylish or artsy or gnarly or – and that’s probably what Alltimers chose in a thoughtful business meeting – funny as fuck. There were numerous times when a new drop of boards has been released and we were just like: “What the hell is going on in the minds of those dudes!?“ Well, we sent a dm like real men (well actually it was an email) and asked – in February 2019 – and here we are now: Alltimers Co-Founder Pryce Holmes gives an insight.
I had a big childhood crush on her, I think it was from seeing My Cousin Vinny a ton of times. We had previously made the Rihanna cruiser and got a cease and desist from the guy who shot the photo. I thought it would be cool for the next one to be someone who wasn’t in the spotlight at the time, and maybe someone that the younger generation wouldn’t be so familiar with. At first, no one was buying them – most kids didn’t know who she was. I was working at Supreme New York at the time and one of Marisa’s old friends ended up coming in and taking a photo of it and asked me for my contact info. A couple weeks later I got a text from Marisa saying she loved the board and invited me to meet her at her apartment. It was wild. I thought someone was pulling a crazy prank on me up until the moment she opened the door. She was sweet and we hung out for a little. She told me she was extra hyped cause the photo I used was from a hula hoop exercise video she put out and never got paid for. A couple weeks later she texted me asking if it was cool for her to bring the board on the Conan O’Brien show. We stayed in touch for a bit. When we made the Ryan Gosling board with Dime, she hit me up and asked for one and reposted it. Couldn’t dream of a better situation. Thank you, Marisa!
Being born in the mid-80s, growing up in the 90s and then being a teen in the 2000s, we were exposed to a lot of different formats and qualities of media. Amazing cartoons, pixelated computer programs, grainy, glitchy VHS tapes, terrible CGI, and then everything the Internet had to offer. It was such a crazy transition. I try my best to show that in Alltimers. Different eras and perceptions of the same thing and collaging it all together. It’s dumb, but this might be my favorite board we’ve done.
Fun fact: Zered and I were in the same cabin at Woodward when we were 13. I watched him land his first rodeo flip.
All credit goes to Zered for this one. He came to me with the idea for the board and the commercial when he first got on. He was always marketed as this serious East Coast dude, so I was stoked that he felt comfortable doing something funny for his first graphic with us. I think it’s super important to be able to make fun of yourself. The day we shot the photos and commercial I remember feeling nervous about trying to direct him, so I bought a 6 pack to cut the edge, and the bottle of champagne that was used in the commercial. Zered showed up shortly after with a 12 pack. I guess he was feeling the same way. He killed it and we had a great day. Still can’t believe he skates for us. Shout out to Jenna Perry Hair for the wig!
I’m sure I’m not the only one, but I had this silly core mentality growing up that you pick one shape and size board and stick to it. Don’t know where it came from. I’m sure an older skater instilled it in me, or maybe it naturally happens cause you don’t have money or boards at your disposal to be able to test out different things. In reality, riding different shapes and sizes will open your brain a bit. It’s hard to explain, but everyone’s had those days where either you decide to try your friend’s board, or you only brought a cruiser, or you have a terrible hangover and are in a weird mental state, but for some reason you have a lot more fun, or end up learning something new. The special shaped boards were to try and evoke something out of that and just laugh. Not take things so seriously. Big thanks to Will and Mike for backing these ideas and then tech packing them.
I don’t know much about tech packs or any of the design programs. That stuff is beyond me. So most of the time our design sessions are me sitting explaining an idea to Mike and he does his best to execute it live in the design matrix. I like watching him work, it helps me spark other ideas. For this series, something was being adjusted and the hardware holes shifted out of place on illustrator. It gave me the idea that it would be funny to print fake holes on the top pass to mess with people. That then spiraled into what would a board look like if a computer malfunctioned while designing it?
In the first 3 years I don’t think we once wrote Alltimers on the bottom of a board. I even remember at some point for no reason at all ignorantly stating that I’d never make Alltimers logo boards. But once our team started growing I realized that they are a bit of a necessity. This was to make fun of that - the shift of something that was only about fun becoming a bit more serious. Turns out fake human puke is super expensive. We had to opt out for the smaller pet puke and it still messed with our margins! But It had to be done. I’d love to do more stuff with 3D texture in the future.
