Tom Blake. Hawaii, 1972.

Contrary to popular belief, the Moondoggies Beach Club logo is not shop owner Randy Adler. The logo was actually modeled after this iconic photo of Tom Blake taken in Hawaii of 1928. We sat down with Randy to uncover the full story behind the brand, and what transpired was a conversation that delved much deeper into surf history and culture than expected. We couldn’t resist sharing it with you.

From Randy: "The idea for Moondoggies Beach Club started when I contacted a good friend of mine, Bill Stansfield, who was a surfing partner and a fellow graduate from SLO High and Cal Poly. Bill and I brainstormed ‘what’s the most important thing about a logo?’ My goal was to have something that truly highlighted the history of surfing. As we looked at different figures throughout surfing’s history, we came across a gentleman by the name of Tom Blake.

Tom was the true embodiment of surfing. As a mainlander, he devoted his life to the sport of surfing in the Hawaiian Islands. He even sailed there on a clipper ship long before there were airplanes. His greatest contribution to the sport of surfing was being the first person to put a fin on a surfboard. When Tom arrived in Hawaii, native Hawaiians were riding long wooden surfboards with no fins. He eventually proposed adding a fin to the bottom of these boards to enable much easier turning. This changed the course of surfing. We thought, what better way to represent surfing in our logo than with a person so unknown and so humble, yet so accomplished, who fundamentally changed the art of surfing?

Once we had Tom Blake as our figure head, I moved on to finding a name that would reflect my mission. I wanted to embrace not only people who surf, but everyone who enjoys the ocean life, so I decided to call the shop a Beach Club. I wanted to make sure that you didn’t have to surf to be associated with Moondoggies, all you needed was a love for the ocean.

Now the Moondoggies part is different. Moondoggies was inspired by the movie Gidget. Moondoggie was a fictional character from the movie and we saw the name as something so iconic that we ran with it.”

Randy Adler, 1984.