Alex Warburton took a year off before college so he could snowboard. “And I’m still taking a year off,” he says, from the barn behind his house where some of snowboarding’s most unconventional designs of recent have been sketched. The decades that have passed since his first “year off” read like a timeline of influential points in snowboarding’s history. There were the early days with Ken Achenbach, his time on the Burton team when Jeff Brushie would sleep on the floor in his Whistler hallway, the early Morrow days with Todd Richards, and his time as a product designer for Forum. This list goes on. Warburton has worked with many of the industry’s most influential brands and been around through its peaks and valleys.
 

“There have been ups and downs, and there have been times when I’ve gone back to banging nails,” he says. This humility and work ethic have carried him to the point he’s at now. With a trail of unorthodox products in his portfolio, Warburton is undoubtedly one of snowboarding’s risk takers. In recent years, YES. Snowboards’ 420 marked a turning point for Warburton and snowboard design as a whole. The trickle-down effect of that design can be seen in nearly every brand’s line today. “That changed everything fundamentally for me,” he explains. “It gave me the courage to risk more things. It gave me the courage to trust my instincts.”
 
It wasn’t always this way. Warburton went through a period where he had to present his ideas in reference to competitors because of who he was working for. “But that’s not how I do it now,” he explains. The 420 was a gamble, inspired by where he was riding and who he was with at the time—particularly a week in Trout Lake with Sean Johnson.
 
“If I have one overarching philosophy, it’s not to collect competitors’ catalogs at a tradeshow. I’ll walk through booths and glance at stuff, but I try to limit my exposure to what other people are doing." Snowboarding is, hopefully, an influence on every snowboard designed, but Warburton looks beyond that. “Mountain biking, surfing, Formula One. I’m fascinated with architecture, furniture design, bioplastics, regenerative manufacturing, and all sorts of things that aren’t snowboarding.”
 

When Warburton speaks of his design philosophy today, he sounds seasoned and assured. “In my 30s, I developed bravado, not confidence. I thought it was confidence, but I was trying to protect my ideas—I wanted to be credited for them. As I got older, I became less protective. I really like working with other people, and I like nurturing new talent. Now it’s a calm confidence. I know I can enhance my snowboard experience through different feels.” 
 
Warburton continues, “I’ve been around long enough that I’m confident if I like how something feels, then some others will probably like how it feels too. Whether it’s faster or lighter, I don’t think about those things too much. If I take that attitude and combine it with the ability to take risks and explore, this will always lead to new ideas and innovation.”

To check out more of Alex's personal work, find him on Instagram @thedesignaggregate